Jordan Field School

Undergraduate Research at Tall Hisban

8 p.m.

Jordan Field School: Undergraduate Research at Tall Hisban. Multi-media presentation.

Newbold Auditorium, Buller Hall

Presenter: Øystein S. LaBianca (BA ’71)

In 1968, Siegfried Horn of the Andrews University Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary launched the Heshbon Expedition to Tall Hisban, Jordan. In 1971, Horn invited Øystein LaBianca to join the expedition as an assistant to Robert Little, the expedition's anthropologist. For the past four decades, LaBianca, as a cofounder of the Madaba Plains Project, has helped organize more than two-dozen archaeological expeditions to Jordan—half of them to Tall Hisban. Since 1980, when he joined the Department of Behavioral Sciences in the College of Arts & Sciences, LaBianca has championed undergraduate student research in Jordan. The culmination of this vision is the Jordan Field School, which provides opportunities on an annual basis for undergraduate faculty and students from many different academic disciplines to become involved in collaborative teaching, research and service in Jordan. This past spring five different teams representing faculty and students from the fields of architecture, behavioral sciences, communication, history and religion participated in launching this exciting new initiative. This multimedia presentation will report on the work of each of these five teams, highlighting their contributions to planning for a new Visitor Center at Tall Hisban. Future plans and opportunities for involvement by alumni, students and friends of archaeology at Andrews will also be shared.