Without explanation, FCPS does not provide funding for anthropology internships

Fernando Camacho and Jessica Xanthomilla

Newspaper La Jornada
Saturday April 30, 2022, p. eleven

Anthropology undergraduate students denounced that the authorities of the Faculty of Political and Social Sciences (FCPS) of the UNAM have not informed them of the budget available to resume the field practices required by the students, nor have they carried out the installation of physical anthropology laboratories.

Carolina Gutiérrez, FCPS academic counselor, explained in an interview with the day that since the resumption of face-to-face classes in said school, anthropology students have not been able to carry out field practices and the direction of the Faculty has not clarified if there are funds for it.

In 2020 and 2021 there was a budget, but in 2022 they are not giving it. The students are quite upset because they can’t make good progress in their subjects. Anthropology is one of the careers that most needs an ethnographic question, and going out to internships helps them a lot to put into practice what they see theoreticallyhe pointed.

According to Gutiérrez, who is the general secretary of the University Students Center, in addition to the lack of budget for carrying out internships, there is the fact that the school authorities have not installed the physical anthropology laboratories nor have they opened the library. nor the campus infirmary.

In the limit

Given this scenario, last Thursday a student assembly was held at the FCPS, where the participants decided to issue a petition made up of demands from all the students, in which they ask the UNAM rectory to coordinate with the direction of the faculty to enable all the spaces and activities that are still not working.

Said petition will be made public on May 3, when the students deliver it to the Rectory after making a march that will depart from the FCPS at 12:30 p.m.

On April 27, the Faculty management released a letter in which it admitted that the school facilities they have reached the limit in enabling new spaces for the tasks of students of all degrees. However, it will seek to strengthen institutional academic collaboration that allows improving the practical activities required in the training of anthropologists..