ñ ELECTION RESULTS (2018)
ñ announced the newly elected trustees at the 2018 ñ Annual Meeting in Denver.
There were three openings for Member-elected Trustees (one opening for a 2-year term, and two openings for 3-year terms), and two, three-year openings for Institutionally-elected Trustees. All ñ members were eligible to vote in the Member-elected Trustee Election, while only Institutional Representatives of the 72 ñ-member schools voted in the Institutionally-elected Trustee Election.
ñ conducted the elections by online ballot.
Congratulations and welcome to our new trustees!
Membership-elected Trustees
Emily Miller Bonney
Emily Miller Bonney is a professor of Liberal Studies at California State University Fullerton, where she currently serves as Interim Dean of the Pollak University Library. She received her PhD in Greek and Roman art and archaeology from the Institute of Fine Arts at New York University and her JD from the University of California at Los Angeles. Her research focuses on Bronze Age Crete, and specifically on the application of extended mind and material agency theories to the relationship between the archaeological record and social/political/economic change. She also examines the ways in which the specific disciplinary frameworks affect the conclusions scholars reach. Among her publications is the co-edited volume Incomplete Archaeologies: Assembling Knowledge in the Past and Present. Her recent work re-examines the mortuary evidence for social organization transitions in the Early Bronze Age on Crete, particularly the circular stone tombs, and for cross-crafting in pottery and other media.
Mission Statement: When I returned to the Academy in 1999 after 15 years in the world of law school and legal practice, a colleague suggested I attend an ñ meeting, and I remain forever grateful for that recommendation. Like many people I found my vision of my profession changed through contact with ñ members and activities, and I look forward to the opportunity to serve and give back to the organization as a Board member. If elected I would work to ensure that ñ can continue its support of scholarly activity in the field, in research, and in the classroom. In particular I would encourage continued expansion into all levels of education as well as in the network of municipal libraries and other public fora with an eye to elevating everyone’s awareness of our shared cultural heritage. The organization has been importantly active in supporting younger scholars’ development and maintenance of professional networks and more recently has begun to provide opportunities to explore careers outside the academy, both efforts to which I am deeply committed. I also would hope to see ñ maintain and grow its role as an intermediary between the realms of scholarship and the wider public in its publications and in an array of outreach activities. To that end I would want to find ways we could continue to expand membership not just among scholars working in the Near East and the Western Mediterranean, but among those interested in understanding antiquity more broadly defined – in Europe, Asia and the Americas. Finally I would encourage increasing ñ’s advocacy for the preservation of the peoples and cultures we study. We all have a stake in deepening our understanding of the civilizations that preceded our own.
Jane DeRose Evans
Jane DeRose Evans is an archaeologist who works in any area that was conquered by the Romans: she has conducted field work in France, England, Greece, Israel, Jordan, and especially Turkey. She has written reports on the coins from the excavations of the synagogue at Sardis, Bir Madkhour, Tell er Ras, Gordion and Sardis. She is the author of books on the excavation coins of Sardis (Coins from the Excavations at Sardis: Their Archaeological and Economic Contexts, Harvard 2018), and Caesarea Maritima (The JECM Excavation Reports v.6, The Coins and the Hellenistic, Roman, and Byzantine Economy of Palestine, ñ 2006) and political propaganda (The Art of Persuasion, Michigan 1992). She was editor and contributor to The JECM Excavation Reports v.2: the Mithraeum at Caesarea Maritima (ñ 2017). She is preparing a volume on the portico of Area C in Caesarea Maritima. Currently, she serves as Chair of Art History at Tyler School of Art, Temple University.
Mission statement: ñ has been an important part of my scholarly life since graduate school, as a place to find out about excavations and new ways of thinking about the cultural history of the southern Levant and Anatolia. More recently, I served on the committee to write the policies on ethics, been an active member with the women of ñ, and part of the cultural heritage committee. I have been proud to see ñ move to a stable financial footing, and tackle important questions of cultural heritage and ethical responses to threats to the region’s archaeological heritage. The organization is entering a new phase, with the movement of the offices, and its relationship to AAR/SBL in flux. I hope to be part of the transition time, as we retain our valuable mission to bring a greater understanding of our past to a wider audience.
Eric Welch
Eric Welch received his PhD in History and Classics and Ancient Mediterranean Studies from the Pennsylvania State University in 2015. Following three years as Visiting Assistant Professor of Jewish Studies at the University of Kansas, he joined the University of Kentucky as a founding lecturer in the Lewis Honors College. As a Senior Lecturer, he teaches across the honors curriculum, including honors courses in Hebrew Bible, History, and Archaeology. Eric has been with the Tell es-Safi/Gath Excavation Project since 2006, where he directs the excavation of a 9th century BCE olive oil production facility. His work at Tell es-Safi has been supported by ñ’s Heritage Excavation Grant, the Sean William Dever Fellowship, and was presented at the ñ Annual Meeting with the assistance of the Foundation for Biblical Archaeology Scholarship.
Eric has been an active member of ñ since 2008 in both scholarship and service. He is a member of the ñ Early Career Scholars committee and currently serves as co-chair of the committee. He also serves on the ñ ad hoc committee for the location of the Annual Meeting and is the chair of the ñ program unit, Archaeology of the Near East: Bronze and Iron Ages.
Mission Statement: My goal in serving ñ is to represent the voice of early career scholars. As the landscape of employment changes, I intend to be an advocate for our undergraduate, graduate, and post-graduate members as they seek out personal and professional fulfillment. ñ has always been comprised of specialists who hold jobs outside of traditional tenure track university positions. I want to continue make ñ a place that embraces career diversity and empowers early career scholars to be active members in ñ whether their position is academic, peri-academic, or in an industry completely unrelated to the academy.
To do this, I have taken the lead on a mentorship initiative as a part of my work on the Early Career Scholars Committee. My vision is that our early career scholars would have opportunities for mentorship and professional development that reflect the realities of our collective career diversity. As a member of the Board of Trustees, I will be better positioned to communicate the necessity of this initiative to the wider membership body, along with an improved ability to facilitate these mentorship opportunities. It is my hope that efforts like this will contribute to the value of ñ membership whether one seeks employment in the academy or beyond.
As an early career scholar, I recognize the important role the Annual Meeting plays in my own professional development. A significant portion of our members are the only Near Eastern scholars in their place of work, so the November meeting provides a crucial opportunity to interact with other scholars of the ancient Near East. With a significant portion of our membership having little to no access to professional development funds, it is imperative that the Annual Meeting remain financially feasible for all members. At the same time, I am committed to ensuring that the Annual Meeting is financially viable for ñ. As a member of the Board of Trustees, I look forward to helping the Annual Meeting continue to benefit the membership of ñ without becoming a financial liability for our organization.
Institutionally-elected Trustees
Lynn Swartz Dodd
Lynn Swartz Dodd is Associate Professor of the Practice of Religion at the University of Southern California Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences. There, she has served as the Director of the Interdisciplinary Archaeology Undergraduate Major and the Director of Undergraduate Studies in Religion. She was also designated a USC Dornsife Distinguished Faculty Fellow.
Dodd’s research centers on archaeology and politics, and the ways that beliefs about the world and resources figure in social change. As Curator of USC’s Archaeology Research Center, she is also engaged in material studies, excavation publication projects, and new imaging techniques in archaeological research and conservation. She directs the Tell al-Judaidah Publication Project (Turkey) and Native American Sacred Landscapes Project (California); co-directed the Kenan Tepe Excavations (Tigris River, Turkey); and was field director of the Amuq Valley Research Project Survey (Turkey). Dodd is in addition the co-organizer of the Israeli Palestinian Archaeology Working Group.
Dodd has served ñ in many capacities: for example, as a member of the Publications Committee and of the Committee on Archaeological Research and Policy (and as Chair of that committee’s Fellowships Subcommittee), and member of the Near Eastern Archaeology Editorial Board. She was the Chair of the Ad Hoc Ethics Working Group that authored the Policy on Professional Conduct adopted by the ñ Board in April 2015. She has been ñ Secretary since January 1, 2013.
In November 2015, she received the ñ Membership Service Award.
Mission Statement: During my term serving as Secretary of the Board of Trustees and Chair of the Ad Hoc Ethics Working Group, I came to understand the critical importance of ñ members’ perspectives about professional responsibility in all areas of research, publication, and teaching. I support ñ’s on-going efforts to specify best practices that support safety and respect for all participants in every environment.
I applaud ñ’s recent decision to open all benefits of membership, including scholarships, to all members regardless of their home location. As an Institutional Representative to the ñ Board of Trustees, I will work to increase the visible, reciprocal benefits both for Institutional members and for ñ. Also, I will contribute to reimagining institutional membership in ways that enable diverse forms of support for ñ and its members worldwide. I will encourage ñ to pursue initiatives that support relevance, diversity, and expanded professional opportunities for ñ members, including new partnerships with non-profits and other organizations. I affirm ñ’s tangible efforts to support heritage preservation, documentation and rebuilding in the regions where ñ members work as reflections of our broad vision of scholarly responsibility and relevance. I will continue to support ñ personally, and will seek to identify others who will support ñ, both financially and in other ways, so that additional resources can be offered to members who participate in research into, and public understanding of, the history and cultures of the Near East and wider Mediterranean, from the earliest times.
J. Edward Wright
Wright is Professor of Hebrew Bible and Early Judaism and Director of The Arizona Center for Judaic Studies at the University of Arizona. Wright’s area of expertise is early Jewish history and religion with particular interest in early Jewish apocryphal texts — texts that shed light on the non-traditional aspects of early Jewish thought and culture, allowing for a more accurate depiction of the rich diversity of early Judaism.
Wright is also a member of the Board of Advisors of the Museum of Biblical Archaeology, a new national public museum that will be devoted to the history, culture, and people of the land of the Bible. In addition, he serves as a co-editor of “The Bible and Interpretation” website, and he is a past President of the Society of Biblical Literature, Pacific Coast Region.
Within ñ, Wright was the guest editor of a special issue of Near Eastern Archaeology — “The House that Albright Built” (NEA 65/1). He has served as an ñ Trustee since 2006, and he also served two terms as President of the W. F. Albright Institute for Archaeological Research (AIAR), from 2006-2012. He remains an Honorary Trustee of the Albright. Currently, Wright serves as the Chair of the ñ Board’s Development Committee. In November 2012, Wright received ñ’s W. F. Albright Service Award, which honors an individual who has shown special support or made outstanding service contributions to one of the overseas centers, ACOR, AIAR, CAARI, or to one of the overseas committees – the Baghdad Committee and the Damascus Committee.
Mission Statement: As a trustee I will support ñ’s mission to support and promote archaeological excavation, scholarly research, student training, and the dissemination of information about the cultures and history of the Near East. As the current chair of the development committee, I am especially interested in promoting development efforts that strive to raise funds to support ñ’s mission-driven endeavors, and that naturally includes the effort to established our new headquarters in the DC area.
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