Publish and Prosper: Scholarly Publishing in Anthropology at the University of Arizona

Abstract

because of the idea of or perish, meaning that a scholar who does not publish will not advance professionally. It is true, of course, that publishing something gives pleasure to an author. However, the real purpose of publishing is to present and share knowledge, not to feed the egos of authors. Therefore, publishing is an important, indeed essential, activity for institutions like universities that generate new knowledge and better understanding of existing knowledge. Universities that share their knowledge widely through scholarly publishing serve the public that supports them and thereby grow and prosper. Such publishing at the University of Arizona is closely linked to its School of Anthropology. The story of the development of anthropological scholarly publishing at Arizona begins, as do so many developments there, with the interests and activities of one of its most distinguished alumni and faculty members, Emil Walter Haury (1904-1992; see Reid 1986, 1993; Thompson 1995; Thompson, Haynes, and Reid 1997; Willey 1994). After being awarded one of the first three master's degrees in archaeology at Arizona in 1928 (BA, 1927), Haury taught at the university for one year under his mentor Byron Cummings (1880-1962; Bostwick 2006), spent another year there in pioneer tree-ring research with Andrew Ellicott Douglass (1867-1962; Webb 1983), and then joined Harold Sterling Gladwin (1883-1983; Haury and Reid 1985) at the Gila Pueblo Archaeological Foundation (Haury 1988) in Globe, Arizona, where he spent seven highly productive years before returning to the university in 1937 as a member of the faculty. He chose Gila Pueblo over three other employment possibilities because Gladwin offered funded field research, prompt publication, and support for doctoral studies.