Speech delivered at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, at the reception on September 30, 2005, for the retirement of Professor Kenneth A.R. Kennedy.
REFLECTIONS ON MY STUDENT EXPERIENCE WITH PROFESSOR KENNEDY*
In 1981 I received my doctorate from Cornell. That should have been the end of homework assignments from Professor Kennedy. However, more than two decades later I have yet another assignment! Nevertheless, this assignment is a great honor and pleasure, although it is one that I would have mixed feelings about because it is also hard to imagine that he retired already last June. However, I suspect that his retirement merely means a shift of his work priorities and schedule, and not an end to teaching, research, and writing by any means. Indeed, I would like to take this opportunity, if I may be so bold, to suggest a homework assignment for Professor Kennedy---- write a book on the history of physical anthropology! At least some of your broad and deep knowledge about this subject should be available in a book.
Ken’s course on that subject was the main attraction that brought me to study with him at Cornell. Sometimes back in the late 1960s, I wrote to him to request a syllabus for his course on this subject that I had discovered in the printed university catalog. Of course, the late 1960s were in the old stoned age. That period was long before the internet with web sites for academics. Ken, always being most generous in sharing his knowledge, kindly sent to me a copy of his syllabus. The entire package was very thick, including extensive reading lists of several pages for each week. But I decided to apply to Cornell anyway! I was not disappointed. The professor was by far one of the best teachers I ever had in some ten years of university course work. This is what I wrote about the seminar in a faculty biographical sketch for my own department at the University of Hawai’i back in 1988:
“Cornell had several attractions... Foremost among these was Ken Kennedy, a genuine scholar and a cultivated gentleman of integrity. He organized a complex mass of ideas, information and literature in teaching a seminar on the history and theory of biological anthropology. The seminar focused on an elemental question— the history of the identity of our species. The seminar was a social as well as an intellectual experience, being held in Ken’s home in front of the fireplace and with a generous supply of sherry. I took the seminar for credit, and thereafter for audit each time it was given. The sherry was superb.”
I should add that another special attribute of the seminar was the very warm and kind hospitality of Ken’s wife, Margaret.
Let us consider for a moment this question: What makes a great teacher? A somewhat different combination of attributes might apply to different teachers. In the case of Professor Kennedy, there are three attributes that impressed me most.
First, there was his awesome syllabus and reading lists. They reflect his systematic, thorough, and deep knowledge of the subject matter. His course materials are prepared with extraordinary organization, detail, and care. They are exemplary models of broad, diverse, and meticulous scholarship which most of us can only begin to emulate. This is reflected as well in what Lynne A. Schepartz, one reviewer of his book, God-Apes and Fossil Men: Paleoanthropology of South Asia, wrote in the journal Asian Perspectives in the Fall issue of 2001:
“Every palaeoanthropologist worth their tenured position knows the intricacies of the archaeological and fossil records for Africa, Europe, Southwest Asia, and China. Yet how many have more than a passing familiarity with South Asia? With the publication of this work, they can no longer excuse their ignorance” (pp. 311-312).
This same reviewer went on to write later:
“In sum, God-Apes and Fossil Men has an incredibly broad scope covering geography, geology, ecology, prehistory, protohistory, primate and human palaeontology, skeletal biology, human variation, genetics, and linguistics. The details are all there, as are the basics and the history behind the discoveries” (p. 313).
A second attribute of this great teacher, one that I alluded to earlier, is that Ken’s classes and relations with students often incorporated social as well as intellectual experiences. For instance, an extra Saturday morning film festival on primates and fossil hominids would begin with coffee and pastry. This attribute is made even clearer if I may read another quote. This is a pop quiz question for Professor Kennedy. Who is the author of the following statement?
“I am a physical anthropologist because the practice of this profession is fun. The reasons standing behind my hedonism are obscure to me, but I am supported in the idea that what physical anthropologists do is valuable as well. It is delightful to reflect upon the fact that one can earn a livelihood by doing exactly as one wants to do in the expression of creativity. Few professions offer greater freedom for the individual and greater opportunity to follow the path of one’s talents. If it were necessary to purchase this type of position instead of being paid to fill it, one would be well advised to find the funds in one way or another! This psychological aspect cannot be overlooked, for what can be more important than for a person to find intense pleasure in the way he will spend a half-century or so of his creative life?”
This quote is part of a statement published in the 1972 Yearbook of Physical Anthropology by Ken.
This quotation also reflects a third attribute which is academic freedom, something not to be taken lightly, especially in the circumstances we live in now. Ken always provided encouragement and support, no matter how far my own intellectual interests deviated from his. This was especially so in my dissertation which was based in part on field observations on the behavior and ecology of indigenous hunter and animal prey interactions in forest ecosystems of the Venezuelan Amazon. Ken’s only restriction was that the research must be quality scholarship. I suspect that this in turn may reflect his own major professor at Berkeley, Theodore McCown. Indeed, in a 1997 article about McCown, Ken (1997:628) writes: “McCown’s philosophy of teaching allowed his students to develop their own fields of research rather than pursue topics of interest to him.” I have tried to do the same with my own students. Moreover, when I am faced with a problem with one of my students, or more frequently, with one of my colleagues, I often ask myself this question: How would Ken handle this? In other words, Ken was a great teacher while I was a student at Cornell, and for some three decades since then he has continued to serve as a role model and inspiration for me. He even continues to give me homework assignments!
After the degree Ken and I have become colleagues and friends. One of the highlights of the annual convention of the American Anthropological Association is visiting with Ken and Margaret.
In conclusion, Ken’s classes and relations with his students provided intellectual rigor in a supportive and enjoyable manner that also encouraged academic freedom. For those gifts he has the enduring gratitude of generations of students. Thank you Ken. It was a real honor and pleasure to study with you, and since then, to have you as a colleague and friend.
References
Kennedy, Kenneth A.R., 1972, “Physical Anthropology,” Yearbook of Physical Anthropology 16:156-157.
Kennedy, Kenneth A.R., 1997, “McCown, Theodore D(oney) (1908-1969),” in History of Physical Anthropology, Frank Spencer, ed., New York, NY: Garland Publishing, Inc., II:627-629.
Kennedy, Kenneth A.R., and Sheilagh T. Brooks, 1984 (February), “Theodore D. McCown: A Perspective on a Physical Anthropology,” Current Anthropology 25(1):99-103.
McCown, Theodore D., 1952, “The Training and Education of the Physical Anthropologist,” American Anthropologist 54:313-317.
Schepartz, Lynne A., 2001, “Book Review: God-Apes and Fossil Men: Paleoanthropology in South Asia, Kenneth A.R. Kennedy...” Asian Perspectives 40(2):311-313.
Spencer, Frank, 1981, “The Rise of Academic Physical Anthropology in the US, 1880-1980: A Historical Overview,” American Journal of Physical Anthropology 56:353-364.
Sponsel, Leslie E., 1988, “Les Sponsel,” in Anthropologists’ Self-Portraits: An Introduction to Faculty at the University of Hawaii, Manoa, Honolulu, HI: The Hawaiian Anthropological Association, pp. 23-25.
* Also see "Forty-one Years of Dedicated Teaching and Research: Professor Kenneth A.R. Kennedy Formally Retires, but Continues to Teach," Cornell University South Asia Newsletter Fall 2005:
http://www.einaudi.cornell.edu/SouthAsia/publications/pdf/newsleter_F05.pdf