00:00.30 archpodnet Welcome back to the serium archeology podcast episode 2 61 and we are talking to Griffin Fox and Griffin you know I'm just wondering you know im and I'm goingnna I'm just going to lay this on you. You know you're you're going to school. You're going for a ph d program. What is your. What is your desired ultimate goal in archeology like what where would you say you've like okay this is where I've wanted to be this is where I want to go or are you still making that decision. 00:26.99 Griffin Fox So overall my end goal I would like to teach and I'd like to do so in a way similar to Kinkella and others who have taught me where I can actually provide undergraduates and graduate students with actual field. Opportunities and other things of that nature because I was lucky enough to get exposed to that sort of thing early on but like I said earlier most people that I've talked to did not and I think that's a big problem in archeology that I'd like to do my part to help fix. 00:47.42 archpodnet Oh. 01:05.20 Griffin Fox So whether that be in the 4 year world or at a community college either of those would be great I know that those jobs are difficult to get into and I'm happy to just keep working in crn and if I really can't find a job in something like that, especially now like having Matt Murray who while he is. 01:19.78 archpodnet Um. 01:23.96 Griffin Fox Ah, Crm for lack of a better word archaeologist. He still has that opportunity to teach people about archeology and engage with the community anything wherein I can do that I'm happy with basically. 01:36.38 archpodnet Sure Yeah, and that's interesting too so would would your focus be more on I mean actually be on like ah I don't know like like that you you can get degrees in and courses of study and public archeology and you know those areas of study or are you looking to. Focus in an area and then you know while you're in while you're doing your Ph D like for your dissertation and then get a teaching job somewhere hopefully and and fulfill those I guess the the public archeology dreams from that side of things. You know what? I mean. 02:10.32 Griffin Fox Yeah I think yeah, basically once I get the Ph D and hypothetically get a job which you know big if these days but um, yeah, let's say that happens what I'd like to do is run some. 02:18.14 archpodnet Ah. 02:25.68 Griffin Fox Manner of field school if I can whether it be just a local thing in the area that I'm living or an over the summer in Scotland type thing. Whatever I can get my dirty little hands on basically and just allow for undergraduate students to get that experience whether or not it be. 02:32.97 archpodnet Well. 02:45.56 Griffin Fox Like even if they don't have an interest in like pursuing archeology just to give them that opportunity anything like that just getting archeology out there more to a wider audience that's more or less my goal on a very basic sense. 02:49.20 archpodnet Yeah. 02:55.89 archpodnet Red. Well that's more or less the goal of the archeology podcast network to to be honest, yeah go ahead Bill. 02:58.96 Bill White yeah yeah yeah I feel like that I feel like that'd be a great direction to go given your interest of wanting to share with others because it opens you up to more positions right? like you're not 100% beholden onto getting a teaching job. 03:02.13 Griffin Fox There we go. 03:18.81 Bill White And I think that a lot of folks. You know when they really start to fixate on that whole teaching job thing then they'll just take anything that comes along and it's like you know? Okay, well if you didn't get at the highest level school then you'll take the next highest level and you'll take the next lowest level and then you get to the point where. You know you're just getting abused by some university because you wanted to be a professor in your ah your goals there. There's a lot of room for flexibility because you could get a job with you know, regional parks or the Nps or you know some other kind of local organization because. I mean it is rare for someone to have something like what's going on in Scotland for a city to have an archaeologist but it's not rare for there to be some kind of historic preservation commission or park service or something like that and then you get to be on the historic properties where you get to be on the cultural resources and your whole goal is to share that with the community. 04:00.70 Griffin Fox Um, admit. 04:12.28 Bill White And so then you end up in that situation where you are teaching field schools like partnering with universities or um, you know, connecting with high school students or middle school students and giving them those chances to go out and do you know what? you love. While you don't have to deal with all the stuff of working at a university because that brings a whole new universe into your into your you know Ah ah life because you know professors are not normal Andrew can attest to that. Maybe he's normal I think Andrew might be the most normal professor. But. 04:29.89 Griffin Fox Yeah, for sure. 04:47.44 Andrew I am so normal so normal. Ah. 04:47.49 Bill White You know you're ah. 04:48.58 Griffin Fox Ah, that's ah, that's a very strong accusation. 04:54.50 Bill White Ah, you you and your backyard pool are so normal right? Yeah, that's it's normal to just let rain collect in your backyard and swim in it I'm just I'm adding the swimming part sorry I don't know if you're actually swimming at it. 05:00.39 Griffin Fox Yeah, he does he does backstrokes in there I've seen it. We live very close together I drive past it all the time. 05:01.47 Andrew That's what I did. 05:07.21 Andrew Um, it's a great deal. That's right, that's right, but it do ah it it may or may not be doing that right at this moment Bill. Just. 05:11.40 Bill White Ah, you drive through it all the time as it floods into the street nobody likes Andrew's house it's flooding into everyone else's head yard. Ah, that's all right? Who am I to point fingers. Ah. 05:13.92 Griffin Fox Yeah, yeah. 05:22.84 Andrew So you know who are you. 05:26.81 archpodnet And again. 05:27.69 Bill White Yeah, but I mean like ah you know folks find themselves in that kind of situation where they're super being coached to go into academia and it's coming from people who made it right? So there's kind of a like. Ah. 05:37.90 Griffin Fox Okay. 05:42.76 Bill White I don't know it's it's weird. It's like a weird place to emphasis on stuff that just doesn't matter for what you're talking about you want to share your craft with others. They want you to write you know, glorified blog posts and get them published into journals and you know bow down to get a couple hundred dollars in grant money. 05:57.51 Griffin Fox Yeah. 06:02.55 Bill White And they they'll Pat you on the back for that when you're shaking your head like you know I could have ran an entire field school with a local college and you know ah had them do a lot of the work and then me just partner along with it and got paid more than I would at this university so I think that you know being open to it. Ah, it doesn't mean that if you get a tenure track job. You can't do what Andrew is doing it just means that it's going to be in a different you know, different environment right with different cohort of colleagues with different goals and and almost none of them dovetail with what you want to do. 06:37.43 Griffin Fox Yeah, for sure and I think um, going off the flexibility thing you're saying I think covid definitely taught me a lot about that because especially in like you know a global pandemic your options are very much limited and you have to kind of deal with what's being offered to you and. From what I've gathered and even experienced in my emerging professional career. The same is very much true in archeology in a general sense. The options are already. There's not a ton like you and you can't if you want to just settle on 1 specific thing like I want to teach. Want to work at a 4 year or whatever you're going to find yourself kind of limited in the scope of what you can actually do and I'm not big on that I want to have options. So yeah I just yeah. 07:25.18 Bill White Right on? Yeah and you know you'll also find yourself competing against other people who will do literally anything to get this job right? And so ah, if you don't want to sacrifice who you are as a person then you know, watch out because there's. 07:31.21 Griffin Fox Yeah, that too. 07:41.36 Bill White There'll be dozens of people who are willing to do that just to say that they're a professor. 07:43.67 Griffin Fox Yes I have met some already. 07:49.16 Bill White I meant plenty. 07:51.30 Griffin Fox I bet. 07:52.98 archpodnet Um. 07:56.93 Andrew Yeah I just totally agree. Well I'm going to go ahead and agree with every single thing that bill just said. Ah, it's totally totally true and I love that part bill where you're talking about these people who've already made it are telling you that. You know you you can do it too. It's like it's like Tom Cruise telling you that you can be an actor too. You know and it's like ah not exactly you know they they have long left the real world of like ok here's the steps to get to hear the chances are very low. 08:12.85 Griffin Fox Yeah, right. 08:14.19 Bill White Yeah, um. 08:22.66 Bill White Yeah, ah. 08:30.66 Andrew But you know here's other opportunities just in case along the way if this looks terrible you you never hear them talk about that stuff and that always bums me out. So yeah, ah right? Dude it's like but we laugh but I know it is. It's my job too. 08:37.88 Bill White Yeah, it's my job every day. So. 08:38.53 Griffin Fox Yeah. 08:49.90 Andrew You know, ah and and it's a such an important job to be like here's reality you know and it's unfortunate in my experience in the academic world that they don't want to hear reality that always just freaks me out. 08:52.41 Bill White Yeah. 09:00.70 Bill White Yeah. 09:03.43 archpodnet Ah. 09:05.80 Griffin Fox It's it is concerning ah at your Ca presentation the other day at seeing the crowd's responses to some of the things you were saying which were more or less what we were just talking about that was ah it was. 09:14.54 Andrew oh yeah oh I would go with negative ah man. Yeah it it wasn't ah um so it was Heather and I actually that the. 09:16.77 Bill White Ah, man and I wish I had seen that. 09:19.76 Griffin Fox It was quite funny in an unfortunate sort of way. 09:23.21 Bill White You've got 3 minutes Andrew Recap I missed it what happened? Yeah I know yeah yeah. 09:29.10 archpodnet No. 09:31.67 Andrew I'm I'm so bum. She's not she's not here right now. But so we we just gave a little a little talk about like alternate ways of learning Archeology. You know we talked about ah basically what we did. We talked about podcasting. We talked about books we talked about um blog posts and ah other places to get archeological Knowledge. You know that. All the stuff we always talk about on here and um, we talked about getting Jobs. We talked about the reality of this kind of stuff the stuff that you and I were just talking About. We just brought these things up the we did a real world moment where it was like hey the real chances of these kind of jobs is this. Why not think about these other things and the audience was um, you know they just they always react in that sort of cold you know frigid sort of manner now I'm not to say everyone react like that I'm not here to say we got boot off the stage or something. But you can always feel it.. There's a big contingent of the stop telling me about reality crowd. Yeah, and it's right and again I always find it so odd I remember when I was a grad student asking. 10:33.85 Bill White Yeah, yeah, there is yeah I've seen it a lot of times. 10:35.82 archpodnet Yeah. 10:36.28 Griffin Fox Yeah. 10:48.54 Andrew Professors about real world. You know things like like what are the chances of me truly getting a job and they looked at me like I was just the devil and the worst part was one of my fellow students took me aside and said Andrew police stop asking that and I'm like what you don't want to know and he actually said. 11:02.35 Bill White Ah, yeah. 11:07.53 Andrew No I'm like what? so anyhow my my little mini rant but but I want to hear more about Griffin your rant you know? Yeah yeah. 11:08.63 Bill White Wow Yeah yeah, ah ah. 11:10.39 Griffin Fox Yeah, that's. 11:21.14 Griffin Fox Ooh Oh I could oh I could ran for hours. What do you want me to rant about. 11:25.25 Bill White Well, but you know one of the one of the things I'd ask because you're like an up-andcoming scholar so you know what are the directions you'd like to see archeology take. 11:25.28 Andrew Time. 11:32.34 Griffin Fox Well like we've touched on I'd like to see a more public outreach approach I think that the disparity between crm and academia has gotten very bad I think there's I know a lot of times. It's played as a joke and I do It's fun to like. Mess with either side be like oh you c r m or you academics, whatever. But I think on some level there is a genuine rivalry there that should not exist because there really does need to be um, what's the collaboration between the two if we want archeology to actually be formidable. Too many academics are just publishing for like you said a couple hundred dollars worth of grant money and then it's not actually producing any meaningful research and I do think at its core archeology is about researching the past and better understanding it. And I think on some level even the most academic of academics have kind of lost sight of that because it's just become more about getting the grant money rehashing the same things. Not actually not doing the real field work that's required to actually get an understanding of the past and. And there's I just like to see that that gap healed and I'd like to do my part to fix that if I can. 12:53.90 Bill White Yeah, right on I I definitely second that because crm folks you know are out there collecting this huge amount of data and those companies that have been around for a long time. You know they're really regionally focused because their office is in you know Phoenix or Milwaukee or whatever and so they've got these projects that are within. Five hundred miles like gigabytes of points and photos and documents and all that stuff and so you know those folks you know some of those bigger companies could be really regional professionals on certain kinds of archaeology that if ah, you know if you had access to all that data. And you were at a university and you could you know you had the time to write these articles like that could be monumental because these reports and the data are really kind of stuck behind this. You know wall for good reason. Ah because you know we don't want these sites to get compromised so that stuff goes to the shipow and it just sits in this. 13:33.65 Griffin Fox Ah. 13:47.90 Griffin Fox Right. 13:52.83 Bill White Warehouse well academics that have time to you know, write on these kind of things and have access to these thousands and thousands of Gis points tons and tons of site shapes variation all these different summaries over 20 to 30 years like you know that's the kind of stuff that some university could really have a field day with an army of graduate students and you know scholars writing on this region's history and all this different stuff that's coming from this this data set like that could be. You know, really huge. It would give you the kind of time to. Would give you the time depth even though you didn't collect all the data to have access to all this stuff way more than our small field schools and our one-off you know weekends and six weeks over in you know St Croix you you have access to all this information. But the crm folks don't have time to just sit there and write journal articles and books whereas. That's the goal of the it seems like that's the main thing they want you to do in academia so I do see where there'd be this really huge and fruitful potential for collaboration between companies and scholars and. Graduate students and stuff but just like you were saying it's it's kind of closed off because crembers are kind of running around like what's my next thing. What's my next hit what's my next hit and then the the academics are thinking oh well, that data that doesn't meet our standards when it's crazy because. 15:20.70 Bill White You know, a lot of these companies. They've really refined these recording and you know documentation standards they're they're set by the state and they're recorded. You know it's gotten better and better over time. So it's kind of crazy that folks are overlooking that whole potential right now. 15:25.37 Griffin Fox Um, yeah. 15:35.22 Bill White Ah, you know and as you as a young scholar like tapping into that kind of thing like that would be something that would make your your you know, research way bigger than it is because you have tons and it'd be the kind of stuff that states and crm um companies really want to see happen regionally. And you get to do exactly what you're talking about by including students and communities and everybody else you know at the level that they're able to to participate I mean I think that's great. 16:01.33 Griffin Fox Yeah, for sure I mean the the material is all there to work with the talent is all there that everything to make it like what we're saying is there. It's just a matter of actually breaking down that barrier and that is something I. Hope to see happen in near in the near future. 16:18.86 Andrew Yeah, and I felt like that in a way Murray Cook and the field school in Scotland kind of gives you the key to that you know if that's one of the things I thought was so interesting. It's like oh that that. Meld of those places is already happening. It can happen you know because sometimes here in the Us like oh it's never going to happen and it's like dude they're doing it. 16:32.29 Griffin Fox Yeah, yeah. 16:38.16 Griffin Fox Yeah, for sure I think I think there's even pockets of it in the Us. But it's definitely not the standard and they're all you know, very small kind of isolated projects that don't often get highlighted I think it's a little easier in the yeah uk or places like Europe because it's so. 16:41.12 archpodnet Ah. 16:57.37 Griffin Fox Intrinsically tied to the to the city and the government and all that but potentially there's nothing truly stopping us from doing that in the United States as well. It's just a matter of organizing I feel like it'll be different of course like than it is in other countries. But. 17:10.20 Andrew M. 17:17.00 Griffin Fox Potential is still there. 17:19.47 Andrew Absolutely. 17:20.86 archpodnet Okay, well I think that's about all we have time for thank Griffin for coming on and you know we of course wish you you know good luck in in all your endeavors and and your ph d program and maybe we can have you on again sometime in the future to. Talk about that and how it's going. 17:39.84 Griffin Fox Yeah, that'd be great. Thank you for having me this was this was awesome. 17:45.58 archpodnet Yeah, no worries all right? Well with that I think ah well thank Andrew for bringing on Griffin and we will come back next time with I'm sure a fantastic show. Maybe not something is polarizing his job satisfaction the last episode which already seen some comments on that. Ah. 18:00.64 Griffin Fox Ah. 18:00.68 Andrew Ah, oh man I love the part where you were like send all emails to Andrew can ke. 18:02.74 archpodnet Ah, yeah, ah yes, ah, also that's right, That's right, Ah, nice all right? Well thanks everybody and we'll see you next time. 18:03.97 Bill White Ah, no. 18:08.31 Griffin Fox Ah, yeah, if anybody has any complaints about me can kill taught me everything I know So ah yeah. 18:13.93 Bill White Ah, ah. 18:21.28 archpodnet Okay, keeping it rolling for the Outro standby. 18:26.76 archpodnet Actually went away from that screen you think I would know it but here it is so we just said I say this little phrase Griffin and then everybody says goodbye after I'm done so here we go thanks to everyone for joining me this week thanks also to the listeners for tuning in and we'll see you in the field goodbye. 18:44.99 Andrew See you guys next time. 18:45.33 Bill White Goodbye. 18:49.33 Griffin Fox Goodbye.