Patricia Rice, MA

Biography of Retirement

Since retirement in 2006, I typically spends six months of the year in Morgantown and six months north of London, in a market town called Linslade on the Grand Union Canal that goes back to the 1200s. It is 35 minutes north of Euston Station by fast train so I go in to London and work at the “biggest science library in the English speaking world” three times a week. I have borrowing rights so I bring back books to read on the other days. It is in the country so lots of sheep, horses, and cows just a five-minute walk away on the path that separates Bedfordshire with Buckinghampshire. (I actually live on a Chiltern.) It is peaceful and pleasant. I can choose the time to go now that I am not tied to the school calendar and now can escape the snow/ice and the heat/humidity of the East Coast winters and summers. We get almost no snow here and summers never see the thermometer over 80 degrees. I like temperate!  

I am still doing research. Since retirement, I have published a number of articles and books, and have edited three books; I am working on the 7th volume of Strategies in Teaching Anthropology. And for the 18th year in a row, I co-edit General Anthropology. I still do Teaching Workshops for the American Anthropological Association at the annual meetings as well as usually chairing a paper session.

I travel. I do at least one trip to some part of Europe while in London, this year to Poland. In the past few years, I have gone to the Ukraine, Russia, Cyprus, etc. And for the longer travels, have done various parts of Africa four times, Madagascar, China, Australia, New Zealand, and Fiji. Travel is more fun when one does not have to fit it into non-school time. Finally, I am working as a volunteer for a Uganda women’s prison by making sock monkeys for the children who “accompany” their mothers to prison. These kids have nothing when they arrive at the prison.

And I hope to continue to do these things for many years.

Cheers—Pat