Don Brenneis honored for service

Donald Brenneis, distinguished professor of anthropology and interim dean of the Division of Social Sciences, has received the Franz Boas Award for Exemplary Service to Anthropology.

The award, presented by the American Anthropological Association, is given annually in recognition of a member's outstanding contribution to anthropology through increasing and disseminating humanistic and scientific knowledge and service to the profession.

The award, which includes a medallion and a trophy, will be presented during the association's annual meeting in Washington, D.C., held Nov. 29-Dec. 3.

Brenneis is a linguistic and social anthropologist whose career has spanned the study in a South Asian diasporic community in Fiji of children's arguments, men's gossip, and the complexities of managing conflict through indirect speech, as well as more recent ethnographic work on peer review, scholarly publishing, assessment practices, higher education policy, and the shaping of scholarly and scientific knowledge within and beyond anthropology.

He joined the faculty in 1996, coming from Pitzer College, where he taught from 1973-1996. He served as president of the American Anthropological Association from 2001-2003.