Celebrating Themeless Discontinuity: Assessments!

Traveling for work is tough. I just spent two weeks out and about, the firt focusing on my very first NPCA assessment. It began at Cowpens National Battlefield, where we talked about resource conditions at that park and its co-managed companion, Ninety-Six National Monument (they have the same superintendant, despite the lengthy commute between them). I guess I should briefly describe what I'm actually DOING, since most people within NPCA have no idea, either. I am the cultural resources coordinator for NPCA's Center for State of the Parks. This is a center that focuses on resource conditions within the Park System. This applies to both natural and cultural resources, though I certainly have an expertise in cultural resources and less of one in natural resources, so I focus on the latter. We go into parks and review all their literature on their own resources and then provide a report outlining gaps in research, management and project needs, and recommendations for improvement. We do not produce any original research, more a synthesis of what is already out there. A new way of looking at what has already been done. A master's thesis. A means of collecting information for both advertising for parks and their needs as well as advocacy. A lot of sitting and reading and taking notes, and every once in a while we get to go into the field and be REAL researchers! While I won't (can't) go into detail of what went on in these workshops, I will include pictures of the sites. They were pretty neat, especially in the dynamics between them, though I am totally bummed that I didn't get to go to Ninety-Six. They were all Revolutionary War sites with very different histories, evidence of which you can see when you walk the grounds.

Anyway...