Left: Karl Schmid

The award recognizes Schmid's participation in Public Anthropology’s Community Action online project as well his wider activities in the public sphere. According to Robert Borofsky, director of the Center for Public Anthropology and a professor of anthropology at Hawaii Pacific University, less than one per cent of faculty teaching introductory anthropology courses across North America receive this award.

"Professor Schmid is to be commended for how he takes classroom knowledge and applies it to real-world challenges, thereby encouraging students to be responsible global citizens," says Borofsky. "In actively addressing important ethical concerns within anthropology, Professor Schmid is providing students with the thinking and writing skills needed for active citizenship. Congratulations to Professor Schmid, the Department of Anthropology and 91ÑÇÉ« on this honour."

Seven of Schmid's students .

Schmid’s research focuses on southern Egypt, especially Luxor, a city which is being rapidly transformed into a transnational tourism zone. Luxor (site of ancient Thebes) has been reconfigured as a World Heritage Site visited by more than five million tourists each year. Schmid documents how the rapid transformation of the city centre has been accomplished by tearing down dozens of public and residential buildings to recreate a 3,500-year-old "avenue of the sphinxes" between two major ancient Egyptian temples.

He is also a collaborator in supported by through the Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council of Canada’s Major Collaborative Research Initiatives program. The project involves a team of international researchers conducting the first comprehensive, comparative analysis of urban expansion and the creation of suburbs in diverse locales around the world.

Among Schmid's recent publications is the article "Doing Ethnography of Tourist Enclaves: Boundaries, Ironies, and Insights" published in the journal Tourist Studies.

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91ÑÇɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

The post 91ÑÇÉ« anthropology prof wins prestigious North American award appeared first on UAP 2026-30.

That was the question 91ÑÇÉ« students in Professor ’s second-year Public Anthropology class addressed in their submissions to the – a North America-wide contest involving 4,000 students in 21 schools.

Seven students in Schmid's class won awards for their op-ed pieces, which debated the ultimate legacy of anthropological research. Their writings focused on the role of publicly-funded research conducted by cultural anthropologists and specifically addressed the ethical question: Should these researchers be held publicly accountable for explaining how those they study have benefited from their research?

The award winners are: Nicole Collver, Vanessa Fallone, Fatima Khan, Kate McFeeters, Amanda Mountford, Sardar Saadi and Colin Savoie.

Above: Seven 91ÑÇÉ« students are the winners of the 2010 Public Anthropology Competition. From left, Colin Savoie, Nicole Collver, Vanessa Fallone, Kate McFeeters, Amanda Mountford, Fatima Khan and Sardar Saadi

"Anthropology has a principle called 'Do no harm.'" says Schmid. "Students were asked to think it through and decide if they agreed with a position posed by anthropology Professor Robert Borofsky, director of the Public Anthropology Center in the United States. He asked if there should be a requirement for anthropologists at the end of their research to create a public statement outlining to what extent they have fulfilled the obligations that were laid out at the beginning of their research."

Students in Schmid's class had to construct their argument and write it in a non-academic style intended for publication in North American newspapers. The focus of the competition was to improve students’ critical thinking and writing skills.

Left: Karl Schmid

A contract faculty member in the Department of Anthropology in the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies and a member of the City Institute, Schmid encourages his students to enter the competition. His course addresses the role of anthropology in the contemporary world and poses the question: How can anthropology apply its methods and insights to local and global problems of inequality, injustice and human suffering?

Competition award winners were judged by their student contemporaries across North America. Students were also graded separately for the course on the following critieria: a clear expression of the point of the article, persuasiveness, thoughtful organization, clarity and ease of comprehension by non-academic readers and, finally, a polite and respectful tone – as opposed to righteous indignation.

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91ÑÇɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

The post 91ÑÇÉ« undergrads win North American contest for debating legacy of anthropology research appeared first on UAP 2026-30.