Laura M. Montgomery

Leading the off campus program Westmont in Mexico for Fall 2011

Education:

• Ph.D. Anthropology, Michigan State University, 1989

Selected Professional Positions:

• Professor of Anthropology, Westmont College, 1990-present
• Resident Director, Westmont in Mexico Program, Queretaro, Mexico 2005 and 2007
• Reviewer, Human Organization, 1997-present
• Reviewer, Medical Anthropology Quarterly, 1994
• Associate Director, Human Needs and Global Resources Program, Wheaton College, 1986-87
• Assistant Professor of Sociology/Anthropology, Wheaton College, 1984-87
• Co-chair of Anthropology of Higher Education Committee, Council on Anthropology and Education (American Anthropological Association)

Areas of Expertise:

• Cultural Anthropology: Mexico and Central America
• International Development
• Cross-cultural Communication Studies
• Cultural Ecology
• Political Economy of Gender

Research Grants:

• Grant to develop study abroad progam in Mexico, funded by Westmont Irvine Foundation Diversity Grant (held jointly with Mary Docter, Ph.D.)
• Faculty Development Grants, Westmont College
• Coalition of Christian Colleges and Universities Global Stewardship Project (funded by the Pew Foundation), 1996
• National resource Fellowship in Foreign Language and International Development Studies, 1983-84

Research Interests

• Short-term medical missions
• Gender equity in higher education
• Effects of new government agricultural policies and the North American Free Trade Agreement on Mexicali, Mexico

Selected Publications:

• “Irrigation and Social Reproduction in the Mexicali Valley of Northwest Mexico” in “Culture and Environment: A Fragile Coexistence,” by R. Jamieson, ed., University of Calgary Press, 1993
• “Short-Term Medical Missions: Enhancing or Eroding Health,” Missiology: An International Review 21 (30), 1993.
• “Girls as Goods: Facing Child Prostitution,” Together, January-March 1996.
• “‘It’s Just What I Like’ Explaining Persistent Patterns of Gender Stratification in the Life Choices of College Students” International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education 17 (6), 2004
• To be published soon: “Reinventing Short-term Medical Missions to Latin America,” Journal of Latin American Theology 1 (2) 2007