It’s one thing to learn about the lives of people who came before us. It’s another to immerse yourself in the lives and stories of generations past.
That’s what 2025 graduate Elie Stenson learned throughout her Case Western Reserve University experience, majoring in art history and anthropology with a concentration in archaeology. This fall she will be attending the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign to pursue a PhD in anthropology.
“Countless people have walked the planet before us, and every single one of them has a story to tell,” she says. “It’s exciting to be able to stand in their footsteps and unearth the artifacts of their lives; in a way it’s like going back in time and having a conversation with them.”
Just how did Elie immerse herself in her studies at CWRU?
For starters, she was the co-president of the undergraduate Art History Club and volunteered for the Cleveland Museum of Natural History’s Archaeology Lab. She also held internships at a cultural resource management firm where she surveyed and excavated sites and worked to preserve, document and curate materials attributed to many different peoples and periods of occupation.
And if that wasn’t enough, Elie completed field school training in New Mexico’s Gila National Forest. There, she participated in the excavation of a 13th-14th century settlement built by the indigenous Kayenta peoples after they experienced a period of drought.
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When you study the arts, humanities, social sciences and economics at CWRU, these are the kinds of experiences that you’ll take part in. You’ll immerse yourself in your field. You’ll learn by living. And you’ll graduate in demand.