Evolutionary Anthropology Society
Annual Report 2004
Submitted by William Irons, EAS President
January 31, 2005

Brief Historical Note

The Evolutionary Anthropology Society (EAS) petitioned the Executive Board (EB) for recognition as a section of the AAA in April of 2004 and the EB recognized us as a probationary section at its May meeting. The letter from AAA President, Elizabeth Brumfiel, to me as President of EAS stated that we would be recognized fully when our membership reached 250. Our list of people who had declared they would be interested in joining EAS if it were a section of the AAA included a large number of anthropologists who are lapsed members of the AAA. One of our goals as a section is to bring such members back into the AAA. I see evidence that we are already achieving this goal.

I would like to thank those who worked to bring the EAS to the point of petitioning for recognition. These include especially James Boster who drafted our Bylaws and set up, and continues to maintain, our websit, http://www.anth.uconn.edu/eas/, and Eric Smith who drafted our Mission Statement and agreed to serve as President-elect. Jim and Eric also served (along with me) as the organizing committee which put our initial petition together. John Patton complied out initial list of potential members. Our initial set of officers provided counsel in establishing the society and acted as our Nominations Committee to help me, as Chair of the Committee, to prepare a slate of nominees for the 2005 AAA election. Our initial officers (other than myself) are James Boster (Secretary Treasurer and Webmaster), Eric Smith (President-elect), Kristen Hawkes (At-large Board Member), Jane Lancaster (At-large Board Member), Frank Marlowe (At-large Board Member), John Patton (At-large Board Member), Mary Shenk (Anthropology News Contributing Editor).

Accomplishments in 2004

The main thing accomplished in 2004 has been the organization of a completely new section. Much of the work was done before we were recognized by the EB as noted above and since being recognized as a probationary section, EAS has done the following:

1. Appointed Mary Shenk as our Anthropology News Contributing Editor. Mary is doing a survey of departments where anthropology graduate students can pursue interests in behavioral ecology and evolutionary psychology and publishing this information in Anthropology News. In the future she may expand her work in this area to gather information on programs where one can pursue other aspects of evolutionary anthropology.

2. Organized a business meeting for the 2004 meetings. Because of the last-minute relocation of the business meeting only two of our offices were present at the 2004 annual meeting and at our first business meeting. However, we did use the occasion to make contact with a number of AAA members interested in playing as active role in EAS and did explore the issue of starting a journal with people who have had experience with section publications. This was done in the business meeting and informally outside the business meeting.

3. Informally we explored the question of our sections starting a new journal with various AAA members who have experience with such ventures. The conclusion reached among the officers involved in these informal discussions is that, at this point, we are now too small a section to undertake such a project. Also there are already a number of publications which adequately serve our interests which we probably cannot adopt. The option of adopting a journal has also been discussed.

4. We fielded a slate of candidates for the 2005 AAA election. The current officers served as the Nominations Committee with me as chair. Our column in Anthropology News included a call to members to make nominations.

5. We contacted the people on our original list of people interested in joining EAS to encourage them to now join officially and explaining how this can be done. For those who are not current members of the AAA this entails joining AAA. Messages were sent out in July and November. People who are already members of the AAA have also been able to keep up with news about our section in Anthropology News. Columns have been appearing monthly since October. Our webmaster, James Boster, put instructions on our website on how to official first before joining EAS as an AAA Section. He also linked out website to the AAA website.

6. As of the end of 2004 we had 172 paid-up members. We need another 83 by May to reach our minimal goal of 250 in order to be fully recognized as an AAA Section. The AAA list of members send to us by Carlo Simpao, AAA Coordinator of Member Services, includes 395 members. This list includes AAA members who are likely to join EAS in the next billing cycle and to whom a complimentary membership was given by the AAA. These complimentary memberships will help in recruiting members and we thank the AAA staff for doing this.

7. Because we are a new section, the money in our AAA Section account is trivial and for now we have not discussed formally how future funds will be spent.

Future Plans

1. We will be organizing a membership drive. The current officers will be contacting likely prospect directly by email (or occasionally by phone) to encourage them to join. It is especially important that in this drive we reach out to prospective members who are beyond the original circle of mostly behavioral ecologists and evolutionary psychologists who organize the section. We need primatologists, human biologists, paleontologists, evolutionary archaeologists, and anthropological geneticists among others. We also need to cultivate a group of potential leaders who are willing to serve as officers and committee members for EAS.

2. We will appoint a committee to solicit paper session for the 2005 meeting and to evaluate proposals for such sessions. We will also need to recruit judges to evaluate student papers for prizes.

3. We will look into the possibility that Human Nature and Evolutionary Anthropology might be made available to our members at a reduced subscription rate.

4. Once our new slate of officers is elected, the continuing officers will get the new offices involved in long-term planning for EAS. There are many potential issues that we have not yet broached.

Recommendations for the Long-Range Planning Committee

At this point we have only minor suggestions.

1. We recommend that the committee suggest to the AAA webmaster that she look into a way to make it less cumbersome and complex for an AAA member to add membership in a new section when she is not at the point of annual renewal of membership. The current procedure is too awkward. This may seem minor, but it should not be allowed to slip through the cracks. Surely a simpler procedure can be set up.

2. Another minor suggestion: we would like it if it were somehow easier for us to access the AAA list of our members without making a special request. We are used to having our own list of members and contacting people with mass emailings on our own. Now that we have a list and the AAA has a different list, the situation is difficult. We would like to be able to continue to contact our full membership by email on our own initiative. Such easy communication with our members will assist in many ways in building our section.