Partnerships (Higher Education and Training)

In 2022, the PSCA and the University of Alabama (UA) Department of Anthropology partnered to provide educational opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students studying archaeology through an archaeological field school hosted at the PSC. In 2024, the UA Department of Gender and Race Studies believed that the PSC would be an ideal site to focus its courses on local histories of slavery and emancipation and preserving African American history and memory. The Department met with the PSCA, which believed that the field school partnership would further support its goals/objectives of education and fostering community awareness. Therefore, in February 2024, the UA expanded its field school to include the Department of Gender and Race Studies.

In early 2024, the Boy Scouts of America (future Scouting America), Troop 100 (Northport, Alabama), contacted the PSCA to see if Troop 100 could support the PSC preservation initiative to further its outdoor activities training (committed to improving their environment), which is core to Scouting's mission The PSCA agreed to partner with Troop 100 See more details regarding each partnership below.

UA Department of Anthropology

The field school provided students with hands-on training in:

archaeological surface pedestrian survey
the documentation of archaeological features,
archaeological photography,
advanced mapping (i.e., digital total station and RTK-GNSS), and
shallow geophysical perspective (i.e., electrical resistivity, ground penetrating radar, electromagnetic induction, and magnetic gradiometry).
The success of the partnership/ collaborative field school was noted in the Tuscaloosa News in 2023 and 2024. In addition, some of the data collected was recently published by the UA students, faculty, and the PSCA in a special issue of the academic journal Archaeological Prospection (Sea et al. 2023).
The PSCA.PSC will continue to host the UA archaeological field school, and other archaeological classes, serving as a local "laboratory" where students can continue to gain hands-on experience in archaeological methods and collaborative practice.
Sea, Claiborne D., Patricia Kemp, Rachel Cajigas, and Elliot H. Blair 2023 Collaborative Multimethod Geophysics at the Prewitt Slave Cemetery, Northport, Alabama. Archaeological Prospection. DOI: 10.1002/arp.1919

UA Department of Gender and Race Studies

The Department of Gender and Race Studies and the PSCA established their partnership and started using the Field School in February 2024.

The Department's class series will include an undergraduate course, "History, Memory, and Performance," in the Spring of 2025.
The course will be paired with a Public History course, offered the same semester, and will consider live, embodied performance as a mode of writing, engaging, and communicating history to the public, using the PSCA documentation and the PSC as a focal site of interpretation.
The Department hopes to support the PSCA's goal of honoring the memories of the Prewitt family ancestors and educating the community about their legacies and the burial ground.
The Department believes the PSCA/PSC will provide an incredible educational opportunity for the UA students.
It will also allow the University to contribute to the PSCA's preservation effort by supporting clean-up as a service to an African-descended community in Alabama, a core facet of the African American Studies program.

Boy Scouts of America (future Scouting America)

Troop 100

Northport, Alabama

The Troop 100 first involvement was participating in the hole-filling task which will assist them in meeting their outdoor training requirements. Their participation efforts also allow the Scouts to learn by doing, a hallmark of scouting outdoor education. The Troop 100 initial visit was on April 15, 2024.

PREPARED. FOR LIFE.