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The ARF Field School Program: A New Opportunity to Support Students Pursuing Careers in Archaeology

In 2020, we began fundraising specifically for the development of a new ARF Field School program. This program aims to meet the critical need for local field school opportunities that provide training and experience required for students to pursue careers in archaeology. Most employment opportunities in archaeology require field experience, but field schools often take place in other countries over a long (6-8 week) period and cost upwards of $4,000, making them inaccessible to many students. Even if students can obtain a scholarship to cover the cost, they cannot necessarily take time off work or away from other responsibilities at home.

To help more BIPOC students prepare for careers in archaeology and to expand participation in archaeology by Black, Indigenous, and People of Color in particular, the ARF has an ongoing program to raise funds to support a local, commuter-based field school. This program kicks off in summer 2022 and will involve pre-excavation training with archaeological equipment, field-based data collection, and post-excavation workshops on analysis of excavated remains. The work will take place at the ARF as well as at the Peralta Hacienda Historical Park. Our fundraising efforts are aimed at supporting all aspects of this program, including stipends for participants, which make up half of the budget. (Know a student who might be interested in this program? Please share the program information and application link with them!)

We welcome your help in supporting this program! You may make a donation to the ARF by credit card on the ARF Gift Fund website or by check to "UC Berkeley Foundation" (with fund number "U0703" on the memo line), mailed to: University of California, Berkeley, Donor and Gift Services, 1995 University Ave., Suite 400, Berkeley, CA 94704-1070. 

In addition to the ARF Field School program, general donations benefit our program in many ways, including:

• providing grants to support field and lab work for dozens of research projects conducted around the world; 
• enabling the purchase of new field and lab equipment to facilitate the work of ARF researchers and others; 
• engaging with the public through lectures and events; and
• expanding our series of archaeology publications.