HP 799: Ethics in Cultural Resource Management. Summer 2019 Semester.
FINAL EXAM
Congratulations. You have completed two years of coursework and you are about to embark on the most exciting segment of your journey through graduate school: researching and writing your thesis. Our program requires all students to take this ethics class in their final semester before moving onto the thesis. Unlike all of your other classes, there is only one graded assignment: this exam. This Pass-Fail exam will determine whether you move onto your thesis and to a professional career in cultural resource management or if you will leave our program without a degree and with our best wishes for success in whatever career track you ultimately decide to follow.
Please answer all of the following questions. Answer completely and in essay form drawing on relevant laws, regulations, and professional codes of conduct and ethics to defend your answers.
1. You are an archaeologist (M.A. degree, RPA-certified) and your employer calls you into her office and instructs you to tell an archaeology crew headed into the field later that day, “where to dig.” The Phase II research design and workplan that you wrote required two weeks of background research to determine and appropriate testing program for the 19th-20th century historic site that the field crew is heading out to do the Phase II testing. How do you respond to your employer’s instructions to tell the crew where to dig?
2. You are an archaeological technician with a B.A. in anthropology and no coursework in architectural history or historic preservation. Your employer assigns you to a two-month field project documenting architectural resources in an Army Corps of Engineers project area. You will be required to photograph historic buildings and collect information to write National Register of Historic Places determination of eligibility statements (you know that you will be asked to write these reports). What do you do in this situation?
3. You are a mid-level manager (PhD-level) in the cultural resources division of a large international consulting company. You manage crews doing archaeology and architectural history work. One of your Section 106 and NEPA clients instructs you to tell your employees to not speak with the residents in the communities where your employees are fulfilling contractual obligations to comply with Section 106 and NEPA. What do you tell your client and your employees?
4. You are an archaeological technician (B.A. in anthropology) and you are working on an archaeological survey and you see a more senior crew member toss an artifact (found on the surface) outside of the project right-of-way so that there would be no need to excavate shovel tests 20 minutes before the crew is scheduled to return to their vehicle. How do you respond to what you see?
5. You are a principal investigator with a large consulting firm specializing in engineering and environmental studies. Your first week on the job, the vice president for the division within which you work calls you into her office to speak with you about the company’s philosophy. Part of the conversation includes the executive’s statement to you that in her opinion there is no such thing as a historic property that is eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places. What is your response?
6. You are a principal investigator (PhD archaeologist) in a medium-sized consulting company. You report directly to the executive in charge of the company’s cultural resources division and you are working on a project preparing data recovery plans for multiple archaeological sites within a proposed highway corridor. You are a historical archaeologist and the executive specializes in prehistory. You are instructed to minimize the level of effort necessary for the data recovery on a historical site so that a prehistoric site that will require expensive deep mechanical excavation will get the green light for data recovery by the client. Your employer is concerned that the historical site data recovery will be too expensive and that the client may change the project and select an alternative that avoids or reduces the impact to archaeological resources. What are your options in this case?
7. A federal agency has just executed a programmatic agreement that streamlines its compliance with Section 106. The new PA eliminates most fieldwork necessary to identify consulting parties, identify historic properties, and evaluate potential effects to them. You (PhD in history) are a principal investigator with a large consulting firm that has a large book of business with this agency and the parties it regulates. You are instructed by your employer to continue servicing these clients by signing forms completed by a third-party outside of your company certifying that there are no historic properties within areas of potential effects and that no historic properties will be adversely affected. How do you respond?
8. You are a field supervisor (M.A. in anthropology) working for a small consulting firm. Except for the three firm owners and yourself, there are no other employees with graduate or undergraduate degrees and archaeological training (e.g., field schools) working for the company. You are working on a Section 106 project (pipeline) testing and excavating sites. All of the archaeology field technicians are ex-offenders released from state prison. You suspect that crew members do not understand what they are required to do and that some of them may not be able to read or write. You also suspect that some of them are abusing alcohol and narcotics while in the field. How do you manage this crew and how do you address your concerns with your employer?
9. You are a new hire in the cultural resources division of a large international consulting company. You just graduated with a M.A. degree in anthropology and you have no coursework or training in architectural history and your immediate supervisor assigns you to research and complete several Historic American Building Survey reports that require archival research and field documentation (photography, building measurements). What is your first step after receiving this assignment?
10. You are the state historic preservation officer (SHPO) and your staff is reviewing a Historic Preservation Fund grant application submitted by a local municipality. Your staff finds evidence that the grant application contains false and incomplete information that makes it ineligible for funding under National Park Service guidelines. How do you address your staff’s concerns with the grant application?
11. You are a historian (PhD) working as a senior staff member in a large consulting company and you submit a draft report with background research and data from fieldwork documenting a historic property subject to local historic preservation regulatory review. Your supervisor transmits your draft report to the company’s client who reads it and who requests substantial changes. These changes include eliminating most of the background research prepared to evaluate the property’s eligibility for designation under local landmarking law. Your client is the property owner and she is responding to a landmark application filed by a local historical society. Though your report recommendations support your client’s assertion that the property is not historic, the changes requested are not consistent with best practices in historic preservation. How do you respond to your supervisor’s request to alter the report in accordance with the client’s wishes?
© 2019 D.S. Rotenstein
Shortlink for this post: https://wp.me/p1bnGQ-3lM