Anthropology Professor Emeritus to Receive WSU Award


William  D. Lipe

PULLMAN, Wash.— William  D. Lipe, professor emeritus of anthropology, has earned the 2011 Washington State University Emeritus Society Legacy of Excellence Award, to be presented at WSU’s annual Showcase celebration on March 25. The award is given for outstanding contributions while in retirement to academia, the university, the community and mankind.
 
He was nominated “based on a career of service to and teaching of archaeology; on outstanding achievements in research into prehistoric Southwestern societies; and on continuing contributions after retirement to academia, the university and the community.”
 
Lipe is described by a nominator as “one of the founding fathers of conservation or public archaeology. His widely cited paper in the Kiva journal (1974) – ‘A Conservation Model for American Archaeology’ – helped to articulate goals and practices for archaeology, many of which were implemented in the Society of Professional Archeology, which he helped to found, and in its follow-on organization, the Register of Professional Archaeologists.”
 
In the mid-1990s Lipe served first as president-elect and then as president of the Society for American Archaeology. He is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and has held several offices.
 
Since his retirement in 2001, Lipe has continued to participate in essentially all the activities he pursued while employed at WSU, where he worked for 32 years. He continues to provide guest lectures in the graduate courses he once taught. He attends annual professional association meetings and is sought out to participate in symposia.
 
Among his post-retirement awards are: the 2010 American Anthropological Association A.V. Kidder Award for eminence in American archaeology, one of the nation’s most distinguished awards in the profession; distinguished service awards from the Crow Canyon Archaeological Center in southwestern Colorado and from the Register of Professional Archaeologists; and the Conservation and Heritage Management Award from the Archaeological Institute of America.
 
Lipe earned a doctoral degree in anthropology from Yale University in 1966 and a bachelor’s in anthropology from the University of Oklahoma in 1957.