On Saturday, Oct.19, O’Dowd Hall hosted a vibrant celebration for the 50th anniversary of the Archeology and Anthropology Departments at Oakland University. Event organizer and OU professor, Rich B. Stamps, invited old friends and new to join in the festivities.
The event included light refreshments and a raffle while attendees visited the various stands set up. Publications and artifacts from the department’s excavations in Israel, and in Michigan’s locations such as the Ft. Michilimackinac, Ft. Gratiot, Thomas Edison’s boyhood home, Wisner Ice House, Austin Farm, Troy parsonage, Oliver Williams House and some Native American sites were displayed by those who conducted and participated in the projects.
“Today has been a wonderful day. If you enjoy your job, it’s not work, and I was so blessed to have a job doing archeology that I enjoy,” Stamps said.
Many alumni attended, such as Mike Pytlik, Jon Carroll, Suzanne Spencer Wood and many more. It was an event where old friends, students and professors could reconnect with one another and reminisce of the time they spent together while in the department.
“I’ve been able to stay in touch with some of these students from the 70s, and we still get together, and we go out for dinner every other month, and we go to a history lecture at OU or go to a museum or something. So, this has been a special time because [we] get to see old friends,” Stamps said. “It’s also important because we need to learn from the past, live in the present, plan for the future.”
“It was a very, very good experience,” Margaret Dooley, a previous student of Stamps, said. She had helped organize the event and was the first person to greet attendees as they first arrived. Regarding the event itself and the experience in the Anthropology Department Dooley highlighted the importance of her studies “Especially the anthropology — you use it every day,” Dooley said.
The event held various publications of local excavations and findings, but Stamps highlighted the importance of knowing Oakland University’s as well.
“It’s important to preserve some of our ancient remains, even here on Oakland’s campus, that’s why I’m a champion for saving the stone walls, saving the foundations, saving all of the remembrances of the old Meadow Brook Farm and the Meadowbrook estate,” Stamps said. “Then the John Dodge experience, then when he dies and his widow lives here. And then when [a student] says … I’m going to give it [the farm] to the state of Michigan to make a university. And here we are, here we are today, thanks to the gracious philanthropy of Matilda Rausch Dodge Wilson.”
The departments of Archeology and Anthropology of Oakland University continue to do more excavations and hands-on research inviting more and more students. They invite many to help faculty collect data and go on international trips or participate in study abroad programs.
For more information on future events, visit the department’s website.
