Chair's Greeting: Once a Slug, Always a Slug

     This year our campus featured alumni who helped to co-create the special place we call UCSC. As anthropology majors, you have chosen an incredible tradition that delves deep into human diversity, cultural meanings, and emerging worlds. You come from diverse communities both near and far, some as first generation students, others as the first to major in anthropology.  Whether in the classrooms, labs, or field schools, you challenge each other to learn together from ethnographic research and critical inquiry whether the issue may be climate change, social justice, or multispecies survival.  In doing so, your minds and voices hold the keys to our shared futures.

     Anthropology students are creative, resilient, and above all, engaging.  These vital skills help carry you forward as new alumni. I join my colleagues in wishing the class of 2018 our hearty congratulations for graduation.  We look forward to hearing your stories, and sharing your challenges and successes.  Remember - once a banana slug, always a banana slug.  Wherever you are in the world, stay in touch and come back to UCSC Anthropology!

By Nancy N. Chen, Professor and Chair