Professor preserves the past

Stepping into Geoff Conrad's office is like taking a step into the past. Ancient Indian artifacts cover the walls, a stone gargoyle perches on his desk and an Aztec stone figure, painted and adorned according to tradition by Professor Conrad himself, stands guard in the corner. \n"I like to think I'm keeping the tradition alive," Conrad said of the cast of the ancient statue, which was decorated differently during various ancient Aztec festivals. \nDirector of IU's Mathers Museum and professor in the department of anthropology, Conrad spends most of his time relaying information about these traditions and ancient cultures to students and the Bloomington community. \n"I think there is a great deal to be learned about the way that culture works and the way it develops over time that's very relevant to the things that we do today," he explained.\nConrad developed an interest in the past at a very early age. Born in Boston and raised in New England, he grew up in a Colonial farmhouse built around 1775. A garden in his backyard yielded such objects as old nails, broken plates and clay marbles. Conrad found them fascinating, for here was a "direct link to the past right in my own backyard." \nHis sixth grade teacher helped cultivate the interest, directing him to books on archeology. When it came time to apply to college, Conrad decided to pursue anthropology as a major, but was unsure as to where it would lead. \nThe deciding factor for Conrad came the summer between his freshman and sophomore years as an undergraduate at Harvard University. Along with 50 other prospective archeologists, he traveled to eastern Wyoming for his first excavation. The work was grueling -- the days were spent digging through rock-hard dirt in extreme heat for evidence of some of the earliest people in the world. "This is when you either love it or you hate it," Conrad said. "And I loved it. I said, 'This is for me,' and I went on to become a professional archeologist." \nAfter completing work in the Eastern Arctic and planning to specialize in arctic archeology as a graduate student at Harvard, Conrad was invited to spend a summer at an excavation site in Peru. He didn't know any Spanish and intended to only stay the summer, but the site intrigued him. He ended up continuing research and excavation studying the Chimu Indians of Peru for 25 years. During this period, he taught as a professor at Harvard, and later in 1983, he was guided by a mentor to consider a position that opened up at Indiana University. Conrad obtained the position as both director of the Mathers Museum and professor of anthropology, and has held it ever since. \nJudy Kirk, assistant director of the museum, saw the institution turn around under the Conrad's direction. "We are now a far more professional institution and more community-oriented. The number of exhibits and programs have increased and they are broader in the topics they cover."\nFor Conrad, the opportunity to work in a museum combined with a university setting is ideal. Having experience in both an independent museum and a university lacking a museum has helped him to appreciate the unique combination. A special method of learning occurs when a museum is contained within a school. "How can you teach anthropology without a having a museum?" he asked. "There's a certain kind of learning that happens when you put something in somebody's hands -- it's a real link to the people who made it. People who are shy in class will start talking, and there's just a kind of learning that occurs in the presence of objects and historical photographs that doesn't occur in any other kind of way."\nConrad tries to incorporate this hands-on learning approach not only in the classroom, but in other ways as well. He lead a trip over spring break for seven of his students to his current work site in the Dominican Republic. Conrad has been studying Caribbean archeology in the Dominican Republic for the past five years, and took the students along to survey an undeveloped site between two resort hotels on the ocean. \nThe site is in danger of being turned into another hotel, and Conrad has been working with the hotel association to consider turning it into an interpretive center, educating tourists on the history of the area. For Jay VanderVeen, one of the graduate students who went on the trip, Conrad's work is incredibly valuable. "I think that's a great use of archeology -- you protect the past, you help the science, and you protect the people in the future," VanderVeen said.\nVanderVeen has been lucky enough to work directly with Conrad, his advisor, on more than one occasion. Not only has he already been to the Dominican Republic with Conrad, but Conrad arranged for VanderVeen to accompany him on a recent trip to Jamaica. "He pretty much organized the trip for me to come along, because he thought it was useful for a student in my position, somebody relatively young in the field, and he went ahead and took the steps and made it possible."\nMentors have helped Conrad himself succeed throughout his career, so he considers this gesture to be simply "passing the favor along." For students, he said, the chance to get involved in research and do real work firsthand under the guidance and supervision of a mentor is priceless. \n"I know what an enormous difference that made to me as a student. I really felt like I was part of something -- I wasn't just sitting in class taking notes and waiting for the exam -- there was a reason for what I was doing. The chance to work closely with somebody on a project becomes the cornerstone of someone's education. It isn't just a bunch of requirements to fulfill; it really all means something."\nConrad wants to reach out to not only his own students, but all students at IU. He wishes the Mathers Museum could be more well-known and utilized. Conrad extends an invitation to all students not only to the material that is on display, but the remaining 98 percent of all collected material that remains in storage. "We're particularly interested in getting more students in -- we always like to get more people in, but we're here because this is a university, and since it's a university it's here to serve students." He hopes to offer the same sort of resources provided to him that have helped shape his life, starting with those very first discoveries in his childhood backyard. \nFor more information on the William Hammond Mathers Museum, visit wwww.indiana.edu/~mathers or call 855-6873. The museum is located at 416 North Indiana Avenue, between 10th and Seventh Streets. Admission is free.