Shared Futures

Mesa Community College

Shereen Lerner
Chair, Cultural Science Department
shereen.lerner@mcmail.maricopa.edu

Shereen Lerner holds a Ph.D. in Anthropology from Arizona State University. She has been teaching anthropology and archaeology at Mesa Community College since 1992. Dr. Lerner is currently in her seventh year as chair of the Department of Cultural Science. Previous to teaching, She served as Arizona’s State Historic Preservation Officer where she was involved in the stewardship of historic places and archaeological sites, including the development of public education programs, legislation, and management of resources.

At Mesa Community College Dr. Lerner has served on numerous committees addressing strategic planning and curricula development. In 2005, as part of the accreditation process, she co-chaired the Higher Learning Commission Criterion 4 Subcommittee, which focused on Acquisition, Discovery, and Application of Knowledge. As part of this subcommittee, MCC assessed the usefulness of its curricula to students who will live and work in a global, diverse, and technological society. She has been a member of the International Education Committee and is currently involved in an effort at the Maricopa County Community College District level to infuse globalization into the district mission and plan. Dr. Lerner has also been active in study abroad programs. Her department coordinates programs in China and Mexico. She herself participated in a program in Ireland in 2005 where she taught an Old World Archaeology course.

In 2004 Dr. Lerner participated in the Salzburg Seminar International Study Program: Community Colleges as sites of Global Citizenship. In 2005 Dr. Lerner returned to the International Study Program as faculty, presenting on “Global Citizenship and Community Colleges.”

Dr. Lerner has been actively involved in discussions of teaching pedagogy, having been part of a National Science Foundation grant entitled “Teaching Archaeology in the 21st Century.” She has chaired the Public Education Committee for the Society for American Archaeology and the Arizona Archaeology Council, and has been active in numerous national and statewide education initiatives designed to encourage stewardship of heritage resources.  Shereen has numerous publications discussing the protection of the past, educating the public, and preserving historic places. Her research interests focus on teaching pedagogy, and, in archaeology in particular, examining the relationship between core and periphery areas, and the changes that occur in cultures over time.