Rebecca J. Dobkins
Faculty Director of Student Abroad Program in Perth, Australia; Spring 2011
Eaton Hall 417
503-370-6639
rdobkins@willamette.edu

Rebecca J. Dobkins

History and Interests

Joined Willamette faculty in 1996, after working as a researcher at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History. Interests include museum studies, Native American contemporary and traditional arts, Maori (New Zealand) arts, and the indigenous peoples, human rights, and the environment. As a curator at the Hallie Ford Museum of Art, Dobkins has organized exhibitions of Native American art that have toured nationally and internationally. Projects include the exhibition The Art of Ceremony: Regalia of Native Oregon, which was awarded a National Endowment for the Arts 2008 American Masterpieces grant. Dobkins is the faculty supervisor for the Chemawa Indian School-Willamette University Partnership Program, a collaborative community service learning project.

Conference Papers

2007, September. Conduit to the Mainstream: Crow’s Shadow Institute of the Arts. Native American Art Studies Association. Fairbanks, AK.

2006, September 15. “Consultation/Collaboration, Representation/Responsibility.” Panel chair. Preserving Our Pasts, Telling Our Stories: Indians, Museums, and the Management of History, Morse Center, University of Oregon.

2005, October 28. “The Eternal Thread: Museums as Facilitators of International Indigenous Exchange.” Native American Art Studies Association Conference. Scottsdale, AZ.

2005, April 8. “Practicing Applied Anthropology in an Art Museum.” Society for Applied Anthropology Annual Meetings. Santa Fe, NM.

Awards and Fellowships

Millicent C. McIntosh Fellowship of the Woodrow Wilson Fellowship Foundation, 2007-2009
National Society of Collegiate Scholars Faculty of the Year Top Ten Finalist, 2006
Willamette University Lilly Grant, 2003
Graves Award in the Humanities, 2002
Willamette University United Methodist Distinguished Teaching Award, 2002
Oregon Council for the Humanities Research Grant, 2000
Willamette University Faculty Achievement Award, 2000, 2005

Major Grants

National Endowment for the Arts Challenge America Grant (for The Art of Ceremony project), 2008-09
National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution, Native American Visual Arts Award, (for the publication of Joe Feddersen: Vital Signs), 2008
National Endowment for the Arts American Masterpieces Program (for The Art of Ceremony project, Hallie Ford Museum of Art), 2007

Degrees Held

Ph.D., Anthropology, University of California, Berkeley. 1995
M.A., English, University of California, Berkeley. 1990
B.A., Women's Studies, Summa cum laude, University of Massachusetts at Amherst. 1983