RONALD D. LIPPI, Ph.D.
Department Chair
Professor of Anthropology
UW-Marathon County
E-Mail: rlippi@uwc.edu

While working toward my bachelor's degree around 1970 in aerospace engineering, I took a little anthropology to fulfill my general education requirements. I have been hooked ever since (though I did get my engineering degree and even worked a little in that profession).

My specialty is South American archaeology, and I got my Master's and Ph.D. degrees at the UW-Madison in the early 1980's. I have had a few research projects in Ecuador, including a big, multi-year project currently in progress. I've spent over eight years, off and on, living in Ecuador, and my wife is Ecuadorian. We go back there often with our two kids so I can continue my research, and they can be with their family.  I've spent the last two summers excavating an Inca fort in my research area and expect to return this coming summer.

If that sounds rather glamorous, I suppose it is, but most of my time I dedicate to teaching freshman and sophomore anthropology courses at the UW-Marathon County. I find the entire field of anthropology, not just archaeology, so immensely interesting and beneficial that I put a lot of effort into sharing with my students the excitement and the wonder. To me anthropology is not a discipline so much as a way of life.  I'm not the most popular professor around, in great part because I'm fairly demanding; I always challenge my students to do better than they think they can. Very few students breeze through my classes, but I like to think that they all become better scholars and better world citizens by having studied with me. Hey, no pain, no gain, right? This isn't to say that my courses are extremely difficult or that students don't like me. Nearly all my students indicate they are satisfied with my courses.

I stay active with writing papers and articles and my third  book on Ecuadorian archaeology was published this year. This third book is the first one I've written in English (though that is my native language) and is intended as a supplement to a textbook in an introductory archaeology course.   In order for me to teach anthropology effectively, I feel it's important to be an active researcher in my field. That way I can share my goals, methods and results with students in a way that they can't get out of textbooks. I also am very busy in a variety of campus events and committees on campus or in the state-wide Anthropology and Sociology Department.

If you are interested in Anthropology but a little unsure about majoring in a field which doesn't seem to be very marketable, it turns out there are few better choices around for an undergraduate major, regardless of what career you end up in.

If you're curious about my last name, it's Italian. My father was first-generation Italian-American, and my mother was first-generation Norwegian-American. I grew up in a small town in Minnesota. In some ways I suppose I've come a long way from my roots, but in another sense I've barely moved. I find my professions--college professor and archaeologist--to be enormously satisfying. What I really am is a lifelong student, except I actually get paid for it (though not all that much).