Moorpark College students celebrate what it means to be human for National Anthropology Day today, Feb. 18.

The Moorpark College Anthropology Association have a booth on Raider Walk at Moorpark College from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. The event is designed to educate and inspire students and faculty about the field of anthropology, said MCAA President Dayle Bingham. The club will also be raffling off shirts, hats and buttons that are provided by the American Anthropological Association.

“Anthropology is an important part of being human,” said Bingham. “In order to understand one another, we must understand the different parts of how humans work. This day is important for us because this field is relatively unknown; there are a lot of questions surrounding it, so it’s a way to get it to the public.”

Anthropologists work in nearly every sector, studying all things that make us human, said Bingham. The field focuses on understanding and accepting human differences through four sub-fields: cultural, biological, linguistics and archaeology, all of which focus on unique aspects of humans. Anthropologists, according to the American Anthropological Association, possess the ability to change the way society sees and interacts with the world.

National Anthropology Day is the second annual celebration organized by the AAA to increase the profile of anthropology in the public’s eye, particularly for students, said John Baker, professor of anthropology at Moorpark College and MCAA’s adviser.

The club hopes the event will increase interest in enrolling in anthropology classes and appeal to potential majors of the field, said Baker.

“I think that the students of Moorpark would benefit from having an awareness of the holistic way anthropology approaches what it means to be human,” he said. “In this increasingly globalized word in which we live, it’s very important for everyone to have an understanding of the role that culture plays in shaping our lives.”

For further information, visit the
Moorpark College Anthropology Association’s Facebook at http://facebook.com/moorparkcollegeanthropology.
The club can be reached at [email protected].