Peter Hammond

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Professor Peter Hammond has been instrumental in the development of new teaching programs important not only to his department but to the campus as a whole. He founded a new teaching program, “Applied Anthropology/UCLA;” co-founded the development studies programs and is currently chairing the Chancellor’s task force on lesbian, gay and bisexual studies.

Working with a colleague, Hammond designed the new development studies program, which provides a theoretically and practically valuable undergraduate major for students interested in careers related to economic development in third world countries. At the graduate level, the program in applied anthropology focuses on the potential relevance of anthropology for understanding and working to resolve a roster of domestic and international problems from poverty alleviation through population control to conflict resolution.

In Hammond’s field studies internships, students are placed in community agencies dealing with issues examined first in the classroom (i.e. at a shelter for the homeless or battered women, the Venice Free Clinic, AIDS Project Los Angeles or Save the Bay). Interns analyze the role of cultural factors as casual agents and as the basis for making policy recommendations. Based on his experience as a faculty fellow and later as a faculty in residence in UCLA’s residence halls, Hammond has developed a series of weekly and monthly instructional programs for a variety of student gatherings, coffee hours and dinners. Every second Sunday he hosts a casual Open House, the only requirement being that the students participate in intelligent conversation or debate on whatever domestic or international issues they find of interest. He also facilitates a weekly rap for lesbian, gay and bisexual studies in the residence halls and hosts a weekly French table.

“His courses have … been tailored to demonstrate the importance and relevance of anthropological inquiry to the personal lives of students.”

“I’ve never learned so much in a single course before. Dr. Hammond is a remarkably engaged, active and caring teacher. His enthusiasm for applied anthropology and the program at UCLA solidified my interest and is a big part of the reason that I am now an applied anthropologist myself.”