The kind of program I have been describing requires intensive work between faculty and students, which is something we can do at Rice because of a certain, easygoing consensus about the principles of the program and its modes of operation, and because of the small size of the program itself. We accept only the number of students we can fully support. We are always working to enhance the level of stipend support for students. We cannot guarantee this fourth year at the present time, but we are beginning to be able to support returning students in this way. At any point in time, then, there are 12-15 graduate students in residence, and about 35 enrolled.
Students move through the program at different rates.
Those who arrive thoroughly prepared might leave for the field after the second year, use the third-year stipend to support fieldwork, and finish in the fourth or fifth year. In sum, the department takes the principles of a reflexive and experimental anthropology as its framework. Our major advantage and major distinction lie in our encouragement of independence and intellectual risk-taking within that framework. We very much feel that some of the most exciting innovations in anthropological work will come as much from changes in the training of ethnographic researchers at the graduate level as from the mature work of senior anthropologists. We are accordingly willing to devote much of our time as teachers to collegial-style work with graduate student projects.