By BRYNNA WILLIAMSON/ Vice Editor-in-Chief
It’s 2 o’clock, Nov. 14, and crime scene tape and skulls littered the front lawn of the UT Tyler greens outside of CAS.
Students will be relieved, however, to know that it was just a biological anthropology class practicing their crime scene investigation.
More than a dozen students from Colleen Hanratty’s ANTH 3330 class gathered to take part in a series of previously formatted investigations, the majority of which were based on real cases that Hanratty had worked on herself.
“So they’ll have about … 40 pieces of different remains to identify, estimate stature, see if they’re interrelated — because the set up for these crime scenes is that we have entered the multiverse and unfortunately, many of the faculty are missing,” Hanratty said with a laugh. “So some of these match the profiles of, say, our dean and our chair. In good-natured fun, we’ve murdered off some of our faculty.”
Under Hanratty’s watch, students were required to observe the crime scene and use given tools to estimate “biological sex, stature, age, cause of death,” and other indicators being taught in the class. The information would end up going into their final papers for the class.
“It’s both [fun and difficult],” said Jessica, a student taking ANTH 3330.
“It beats staying inside,” says Dillon, another student in the class. “At least it’s nice weather today!”
There are no prerequisites to take ANTH 3330, which is also being offered in spring 2024.
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