NAPA Student Achievement Award 2015
PURPOSE:
The National Association for the Practice of Anthropology (NAPA) offers the annual Student Achievement Award to
recognize student contributions in the area of practicing and applied anthropology. The Award recognizes students who
have excelled in the field and provides opportunities, particularly for students who have worked on team projects and in
applied contexts, to be recognized and have their work acknowledged during the AAA annual meetings.
AWARDS and RECOGNITION
1. Three cash prizes: $300, 1st Place; $100, 1st Runner Up; $50, 2nd Runner Up
2. Awardees will receive a certificate of recognition and will be acknowledged at the NAPA Business Meeting
during the 2015 AAA meeting.
3. Awardees will be in listed on the NAPA website’s Student Achievement Award archive and abstracts will be
included when available.
ELIGIBILITY
Students must have been enrolled in a graduate or undergraduate degree program at the time that they conducted their
work. Applications will be accepted from current students or students who have graduated within six months of their
graduation. Submissions must be original work of publishable quality, and not primarily a repurposing of papers already
submitted for class requirements. The work may be undertaken alone or in collaboration with others, but for papers
with one or more co-authors, an enrolled student (at the time of work) must be the paper’s first author.
SUBMISSION REQUIREMENTS
A panel of anthropological practitioners will review all student paper submissions. Papers must be no more than 25
pages of text and footnotes, excluding the bibliography and any supporting materials. Papers should conform to the
author guidelines of the American Anthropologist (http://www.aaanet.org/publications/guidelines.cfm). Papers must be
a product of work relevant to practicing and applied anthropology, including, but not limited to: examinations of
community impact, contributions to identifying and improving local/service needs, or communicating anthropological
theory and methods to non-anthropologist in collaborative research settings including nonprofit agencies, communities,
government agencies, and business organizations. Papers should not consist solely of intellectual musings, philosophical
discussions, or personal reflections.
Papers should be double-spaced using a common 12-point font, submitted in either MS Word or PDF formats. Margins
should be 1” on all sides. Please also submit an abstract with the paper. Students are encouraged to have their papers
reviewed by an academic adviser apprised of the criteria below before submission, although this is not mandatory.
CRITERIA FOR EVALUATION
Successful applications will have read through and closely followed the award criteria below:
There is a clear statement of the problem or issue being investigated.
The subject is directly and closely relevant to practicing/applied anthropology.
The paper lucidly states the practical implications of the research for addressing or understanding real-world
problems, and discusses recommendations, appropriate solutions, or outcomes.
Intellectual antecedents for framing the problem/issue or put forth concisely and cogently.
Any arguments that potentially undermine the position being supported are considered, and both the
plausibility and limitations of arguments are acknowledged.
The paper will be mechanically sound. This includes strong grammatical writing, proper formatting, appropriate
text citations, and a complete and accurate bibliography.
SUBMISSION PROCESS
Deadline for submission is June 1, 2015. Papers must be submitted by the deadline to the NAPA Student
Representative Marie Schaefer at napastudentaward@gmail.com. For more information on the award and a list of past
winners, visit the NAPA website at http://practicinganthropology.org/, or contact Marie Schaefer.
PSU Anthropology Department 