A professor at the University of Missouri-St. Louis since 2000, Dr. Donna Hart, has assisted four students to achieve the Fulbright scholarship in just the past four years alone.
A professor at the University of Missouri-St. Louis since 2000, Dr. Donna Hart, has assisted four students to achieve the Fulbright scholarship in just the past four years alone.
The Current: How did you get into anthropology?
Donna Hart: I had a first career in wildlife conservation and I realized that, because multilateral wildlife treaties were my specialty, that really all the problems that impinge on wildlife survival are people problems. Anthropology, with its holistic nature, was really a good way to look at how we’ve evolved, [about] our place in the ecosystem, and how we interact with domesticated and wild animals. So, that was the reason I changed direction.
TC: So, you have trained students for the Fulbright scholarship?
DH: We get highly motivated students and then I mentor them through the process, which takes about a year. So, we don’t actually train them. What we do is guide and advise and then mentor them through this rather complex, long-term process that has culminated into receiving a Fulbright scholarship.
TC: Do you seek students out for this award or do students come to you?
DH: We don’t have a formal process at all. All the faculty actually are on the lookout for exceptional students with high motivation and sometimes they have come to me. Sometimes we have sought them out.
TC: Is there a “secret recipe” for success in earning a Fulbright?
DH: It is a very close relationship because it is as important to me that they get the scholarship as it is to them. I get very invested in their success. If there’s one thing that I think that I’ve learned and that I think is important, is that you cannot in any way have the application rest just on the research. It has to include a nicely tailored and very well thought out approach to how you’re going to fit into this community and what you’re going.
TC: How do you feel that you have helped these students achieve the scholarship?
DH: It’s very satisfying. We became very close friends with all of them, and I think we’ll probably retain a friendship for a long time because we worked on something together. I could not be more thrilled. I’m second only to themselves in the amount of thrill I get from them achieving this.
TC: What is something you love doing that people may not know about?
DH: My husband and I are so committed to environmentalism. I love gardening. I love flowers. I love tending to gardens. I guess that’s a relaxing option.
TC: What is the aspect of teaching you like most?
DH: I like teaching how to do research. That is, in all the classes I’ve taught at the Honors College and here, I’ve tried to have a component of the course include some of the basics on how you do research and how you analyze data after you’ve collected it.
TC: Do you believe anthropology is misunderstood in certain ways?
DH: I think anthropology is perhaps not appreciated for its practical use. Other than that fear over anthropologists being hired by the army to sort of outtake the Taliban, usually anthropologists are not regarded as advisors. Yet, anthropologists understand other cultures. They see human needs and motivations so I think that the practical nature of anthropology is misunderstood.