Born in Jersey City, New Jersey (September 23, 1942), Charles F. Urbanowicz received his Ph.D. in Anthropology (University of Oregon, 1972) based on fieldwork in the Polynesian Kingdom of Tonga in 1970 and 1971 (combined with archival research in Hawai'i, Australia, and New Zealand). Prior to this, after his 1960 high school graduation, Charlie attended New York University (1960-1961) where he flunked out. After enlisting in the United States Air Force in 1961 (Honorably Discharged, 1965), he took his first post-NYU academic course in the State of Washington. Charlie was married in 1963 (son born in 1972). After USAF service, Charlie attended Western Washington University and was awarded the B.A. in Sociology/Anthropology (1967) and then went on to the University of Oregon where he was awarded the M.A. in Anthropology (1969) and then the Ph.D. (1972).
Charlie taught at the University of Minnesota. Minneapolis (1972-1973) then joined the faculty of CSU, Chico, and is now a Professor of Anthropology. He enjoys teaching and his courses include Introductory (and upper-division) Cultural Anthropology, Peoples And Cultures of the Pacific, History of Anthropology, and various Social Science courses. At CSU, Chico, he served as Social Science Coordinator (1975-1977) and was the Associate Dean in the Center for Regional and Continuing Education (1977-1988). He follows aspects of information technologies on a global scale and is currently engaged on research involving Cyberspace (as well as Tourism).
Charlie has published more than fifty articles and chapters and has presented almost 100 papers at professional meetings with his most recent papers were "Comments After The Iridium Session @Cancun: Two (Or More?) Cultures" and "The Gaming Heritage: A Natural For Some And Problems For Others?" (both for the 53rd Annual Meeting of the Society for Applied Anthropology, Canc£n, Mexico (April 1994) as well as a chapter (entitled "Gambling In The 1990s From A Personal Perspective") for the third edition of The Anthropology of Tourism: Hosts And Guests in the 20th Century.
In addition to fieldwork in the Polynesian Kingdom of Tonga in 1970 and
1971 (accompanied by his wife), Charlie and his wife have travelled through
various island nations of the South Pacific (including New Zealand, Fiji,
Western Samoa, American Samoa, and Tahiti) and Charlie has made twenty trips
to Hawai'i since his first trip in 1970. In addition to having been in all
fifty of the United States of America, Charlie and his wife have travelled
through Europe and Charlie has also been to the Far East: Japan, Malaysia,
Singapore, Taiwan, and Thailand Charlie attended The Internet Society meeting
in Honolulu in June 1995 Charlie made a brief presentation at the recent
Conference held at CSU, Chico sponsored by CELT [Center for Excellence
in Learning and Teaching] dealing with some cyberspace activity involving
the World Wide Web
see CELT September 5, 1995, Outline & Words
(http://www.csuchico.edu/~curban/celt/celt-seo.html) and
CELT September 15, 1995 40 URLS
(http://www.csuchico.edu/~curban/celt/celt-40urls.html)
He has been has been awarded a sabbatical for research into Cyberspace over the period of January-June 1997 and has also been granted partial release time for Spring 1996 to assist in the development of web templates for the faculty at Chico State.