The Heritage Education Network

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Welcome to The Heritage Education Network’s updated and redesigned website. New features include Ask Carol, a Calendar of Events, a Directory of Experts, an updated Resource Library (formerly the Annotated Bibliography).

The Heritage Education Network (THEN) is an alliance for those who use, manage, teach or create information about past or present peoples and cultures. We are archaeologists, anthropologists, historians, formal and informal educators, architects, folklorists, museum specialists, interpreters, art historians and others committed to public outreach about cultural heritage.

We work together to network, exchange ideas, professionalize, and share information. We provide a bridge between professional heritage specialists and those who produce, use, and disseminate educational materials.

THEN aspires to pursue its mission and purpose by:

  1. communicating through available professional communication channels;
  2. setting best practices and guidelines for practicing professionals;
  3. recommending curriculum heritage educators at all levels;
  4. promoting and conducting professional development programs; and
  5. expressing its members’ interests—and anthropological and educational approaches in general—to the public, their institutional agencies, and other professional associations. Through these activities, THEN strives to be a professional organization for heritage educators and users of heritage education materials around the world.

The Guiding Statement

Heritage education is a pedagogic approach to teaching and learning that uses information available from tangible and intangible culture and from the natural, human, and built environments as primary instructional resources. It is a relational and experiential process that takes place in the interaction between the individual and the object or idea of heritage. 

Our Board Members

Hope Luhman, President

Joe Watkins, Treasurer

Eleanor King, Past President

Rebecca (Becca) Simon, Board Member

Elaine Franklin, Board Member

Carol J. Ellick, Executive Director

Our Bylaws

THEN bylaws outline how we operate including the decision-making processes,financial and legal responsibilities. The bylaws to better understand how THEN is guided and how members can participate in and shape the organization.

Read the Bylaws
Hope Luhman

Hope Luhman (Ph.D., Bryn Mawr College) is the Principal for Applied Cultural Heritage LLC in Lexington, Missouri.

Dr. Luhman has also served as the Discipline Service Lead – Cultural Resources for Westland Resources, Senior Vice President and Cultural Heritage Technical Fellow for WSP, and Louis Berger Senior Vice President for Applied Sciences and other positions. She was also the City Archaeologist for Kansas City, Missouri. She has vast experience building client relationships with state departments of transportation, local/regional agencies, federal governmental agencies, and private developers. In collaboration with regional heritage resource teams, Hope has facilitated regulatory and stakeholder consultation and Tribal engagement, developed public education programs, prepared agreement documents and special exhibits, and provided expert witness testimony. She has served on the Society for American Archaeology (SAA) Public Education Committee, assisted in SAA task forces and other committees, the American Cultural Resources Association (ACRA) board of directors, the Transportation Research Board (TRB) AME60 (Archaeological and Historic Preservation in Transportation) committee, and the New York Archaeological Council among others.

Joe E. Watkins

Joe E. Watkins (Ph.D. Southern Methodist University) is the Senior Consultant at Archaeological and Cultural Education Consultants LLC (ACE Consultants) in Tucson, Arizona.

Dr. Watkins is a Designated Campus Colleague in the School of Anthropology at the University of Arizona and a faculty member in the Global Research Unit for Indigenous Studies and Cultural Diversity Program at Hokkaido University. He served as President of the Society for American Archaeology from 2019 to 2021. His area of expertise includes the interrelationship between archaeologists and Indigenous peoples, Indigenous Archaeology, and ethics in anthropology. In his career, he has worked within the federal government, academia, and the private sector. He is the author of numerous books and publications including Indigenizing Japan: Ainu Past, Present, and Future (2025) and Indigenous Archaeology: American Indian Values and Scientific Practice (2001), as well as posts on the SAPIENS blog http://www.sapiens.org/.

Eleanor King

Eleanor King (Ph.D. University of Pennsylvania) is Professor Emerita of Anthropology, Howard University, Washington, DC.

Dr. King is an archaeologist and educator specializing in the prehispanic Maya. She has also investigated the historical interaction between Apache and Buffalo Soldiers in the U.S. Southwest. She currently directs the Maax Na Archaeology Project in Belize and co-directs “Routes to Roots,” a public outreach program for Belizean K-12 students. She has researched, lectured, and published on public outreach in archaeology, heritage studies, and illicit trafficking in antiquities. She edited a thematic edition of the Society for American Archaeology’s (SAA) Advances in Archaeological Practice (4:4) that was focused on archaeological education and wrote the introductory article, “Systematizing Public Education in Archaeology.” She belongs to several professional anthropological and archaeological organizations, having served most notably on the Society for American Archaeology’s (SAA) Public Education Committee, as well as on task forces. She also served as Chair of the SAA’s Committee on the Status of Women in Archaeology.

Becca Simon

Rebecca (Becca) Simon (M.A. Colorado State University) is the Staff Archaeologist at the Colorado Department of Transportation in Denver, Colorado.

Ms. Simon’s experience includes being Colorado’s Assistant State Archaeologist, an archaeologist and educator at Crow Canyon Archaeological Center, and positions with several private cultural resource management firms. Becca has Bachelor’s degrees from Pennsylvania State University and a Master’s degree in Anthropology from Colorado State University. Becca’s interests include public outreach and education, Southwest archaeology, the protohistoric era, preservation, and most importantly her dog, Minnie.

Elaine Franklin

Elaine Franglin (PhD., University of North Carolina) is a career educator with experience as a teacher, researcher, and educational leader.

She has been involved in heritage education to different degrees and in various roles for 30 years including nine years as the Director of Education at Crow Canyon Archaeological Center (1997-2006). She has published nationally and internationally on archaeology education and has directed six National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Institutes for Teachers focused on American Indian history, (five in the Southwest and one in the Southeast). She is author of How Students Understand the Past: From Theory to Practice and, with Marjorie Connolly, editor of Windows into the Past: Crow Canyon Archaeological Center’s Guide for Teachers. Elaine earned her Ph.D. in the Social Foundations of Education with a minor in Anthropology from the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. She recently retired from her position as Director of the Kenan Fellows Program for Teacher Leadership at North Carolina State University and looks forward to pursuing research interests around public archaeology and heritage education programs, and how they influence the knowledge, attitudes, and beliefs of those who participate in them.

Carol J. Ellick

Carol J. Ellick (M.A. Chapman University) is an applied archaeologist and the founder and Executive Director of Archaeological and Cultural Education Consultants, LLC (ACE Consultants) in Tucson, Arizona.

Ms. Ellick is a Designated Campus Colleague in the School of Anthropology at the University of Arizona and a research affiliate in the Center for Ainu and Indigenous Studies at Hokkaido University. She is an international leader in the field of archaeological education and public outreach with work in the U.S., Japan, and Australia. She development Parallel Perspectives, a process for including western scientific and traditional indigenous stories of people and the past to provide the audience with a fuller understanding of culture. Ms. Ellick is a member of the Society for American Archaeology. She is author of numerous articles in professional journals, books, activity guides, and lesson plans, including The Cultural History of Archaeological Education in the Society for American Archaeology “Advances in Archaeological Practice” 4(4). Much of the material she has created is available on her website: www.theaceconsultants.com. Her passion is sharing what is learned through current archaeological research with the public.