Article begins
What is the purpose of an association website? For NAPA, the main objective of the association’s website is to serve members and potential members. In addition, along with NAPA’s social media outlets, it serves as the primary public face of NAPA.
After a year of reorganizing and reformatting, NAPA officially launched a newly redesigned website in February 2019, found at practicinganthropology.org. Viewers will find cleaner navigation, a better overall look, and most importantly, several new resources to use. The site has four main sections:
Mentoring/Career
A main feature of the site is extensive information on practice, careers, and mentoring. Unlike professions such as architecture and accounting, applied anthropology has a less clearly defined career track and trajectory. While this makes job hunting a challenge, the benefit is that the broad skill set of anthropologists can be applied across a wide range of interesting employment sectors and positions. Still, it may be difficult to narrow the potential search parameters when seeking a job after graduate school or a desired mid-career change of direction. To address this, the site has some relevant content:
- career development information and resources, including resume writing, how to build a network, career shifting, and making it as an independent consultant in various sectors
- internship tips: how to find them, and how to optimize the experience
- position listings: Numerous job sites that are likely to have jobs of interest to anthropologists, indexed by job sectors
- opportunity listings, such as fellowships, internships, volunteering, field schools, and graduate programs
The section also hosts the NAPA Mentor Program, one of the oldest and most extensive in the field. You will find information explaining the details of the program and the online application forms; you can also sort through dozens and dozens of career-related FAQs, heavily focused on key undergraduate and graduate school issues. There is also a special section on business anthropology.
Discover
The Discover section has all the information you need to know about NAPA, including membership, volunteering, awards, and the annual meeting. You will also find details on NAPA leadership (the Governing Council), bylaws, history, and NAPA’s many committees. In addition, there are substantive archives, which house audio recordings from past NAPA invited sessions at annual meetings, committee chair reports, a list of past NAPA presidents, and a compilation of NAPA’s foundational documents.
Practice
The Practice section, as you might anticipate, provides an overview of the practice of anthropology, a vital discussion on ethical considerations, and a new highlight, a developing discussion of best practices. A major resource is a collection of nearly 30 practitioner interviews conducted by NAPA over the years, focused on the “what” and “how” of applied anthropology. These are a mix of audio, video, and text formats. The section also includes information on the NAPA Student Achievement Award and pn related organizations.
Communicate (https://www.practicinganthropology.org/communicate/)
The Communicate section presents the various outlets NAPA uses to help the practitioner community discuss and interact. This includes the listserv, the NAPA Notes triennial newsletter, NAPA’s vibrant social media (Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn), and details on the NAPA journal, the Annals of Anthropological Practice. The Contact Us page is also in this section; use it to get in touch with NAPA.
Along with these four sections are the NAPA blogs. Primary among these is the AnthroJob of the Week, which highlights jobs calling for anthropological skills. Look through the past blog postings to understand what skills employers have been seeking in the past months or years. If you would like to contribute to this or any of the blogs, be in touch.
The redesign is based on an analysis done in late 2017 by an anthropological design class at U North Texas under past NAPA president Susan Squires. A student from that class, Brandon Meyer, then spearheaded the new design and coding of the site. The new and updated content was developed through 2018 by members of the NAPA Communications Committee. Happily, NAPA has retained Meyer in a paid position to be the NAPA website coordinator. The redesign process was highlighted at during a session at the 2019 SfAA Annual Meeting.
The website belongs to all NAPA members, and relevant contributions are welcome. We need guest bloggers to submit general thoughts and reflections on the field. (Remember those old term papers that you have somewhere idly sitting on a disk? Why not get some mileage out of all that effort?)
Take some time to explore NAPA’s new website at www.practicinganthropology.org. If you find yourself thinking the website should have this or that content, then research it, write it up, and send it in. You may also submit your suggestions on content you would like to see, or submit content that enhances what is already online. Let us know if you find the site helpful, and what would be useful for you. Your thoughts would be appreciated!
Finally, The NAPA Communications Committee can always use ongoing volunteers to develop the blogs and website content. If you would like to better connect with the practitioner field by volunteering with NAPA, contact Communication Committee Chair Joshua Liggett at [email protected].
Terry Redding, an evaluation and editorial independent consultant in Washington, DC, is the outgoing chair of the NAPA Communications Committee.
To submit contributions to NAPA Section News, please contact contributing editor Rachel Hall-Clifford ([email protected]).
Cite as: Redding, Terry. 2019. “New Design for the NAPA Website.” Anthropology News website, May 6, 2019. DOI: 10.1111/AN.1156