African American Studies Program 103 Walker Hall *NEW LOCATION*
PO Box 118120
Gainesville, FL 32611
Phone: (352) 392-5724
Fax: (352) 294-0007
Email: sburney@clas.ufl.edu
Welcome
***Dr.
Faye V. Harrison***
GREETINGS
FROM
THE DIRECTOR OF THE
UF
AFRICAN AMERICAN STUDIES PROGAM!
It was spring
semester 2007. UF’s College of Liberal
Arts was in the throes of a major budget crisis.Students
were worried that the African American Studies Program
would be adversely affected, perhaps even eliminated. At a rally to
demonstrate
support for the program, a young man, originally from the Caribbean,
spoke
about how the courses he took had taught him what it means to be a
Black
man.
In
September 2008 a young English woman visited the
program. While on an exchange program at UF last year, she had taken an
African
American Studies class.Making the rounds
to her former professors, she stopped by the African American Studies
Program.
She informed her former instructor that the course she took from him
was the
best course she had ever had. It changed the way she thinks about the
U.S. –and
the world.
Welcometo the African American Studies
homepage!The 2008-09 academic year is
a significant milestone for us.On a
university-wide
basis, we are celebrating the 50th anniversary of racial
integration.During the week of
September 15, 2008, Mr. George H. Starke, Jr., the first African
American student
to enroll at UF, returned to Gainesville to join us in recognizing the
past 50 years
of building a collective Black presence at this institution of higher
learning.Mr. Starke, who was the first
Black student at the Levin College of Law, opened the gates through
which
others, both undergraduates and graduates, entered in subsequent years.
Since
that historic moment, nearly 12,000 Black students have earned UF
degrees. Ten years after Mr. Starke’s
courageous challenge
to the institutionalized practice and policy of racial exclusion at UF,
a group
of faculty and students established the African American Studies
Program, which
in 1970 Dr. Ronald Foreman, Jr. was recruited to direct. We are
honoring the
legacies of both Mr. Starke and Dr. Foreman in our continued efforts to
advance
the study of the diversity and commonality of African Americans along
with other
African Diasporic communities in this country as well as elsewhere in
the
Americas and Black Atlantic World.
Thanks to
the foresight and concerted initiative of students
and faculty in alliance with supportive community groups, UF was one of
the very
first universities in the nation to establish an academic unit
dedicated to Black
studies.The Black Studies Movement,aligned with mass mobilizations for Civil
Rights
and Black Power, laid the fertile ground for building a supportive
space in
which to educate students, produce critically meaningful knowledge, and
relate
the praxis of pedagogy and scholarly research to significant and often
urgent
issues of public engagement.Whether
focused primarily on African Americans or wider Africana concerns with
connections
between the Continent and its Diasporas, Black studies as an
interdisciplinary
field has achieved a remarkable level of programmatic maturity. This
has led to
the development of master’s and doctoral degree programs all around the
country. This evidence of growing
professionalization
signals to us that an increasingly coherent body of knowledge has been
accumulated to: 1) provide the conceptual, theoretical, and
methodological
tools for designing and implementing innovative research; 2) analyze,
interpret
and explain the collected research results; and finally 3) apply newly
reintegrated knowledge in concrete contexts of problem-solving for the
improved
well-being of Black communities here and in other diasporic locations.
Although
small, the African American Studies Program at UF
offers students the opportunity to study with dynamic faculty whose
research
links the Black experience in the U.S. to the African Diaspora in
Canada, the
Caribbean, and Europe.Their teaching
addresses
such topics as: the historical archaeology of African American culture,
the
history of African American and Black Atlantic social thought, Black
feminist
and womanist consciousness, Black images in film and mass media, the
historiography of jazz, and psychological perspectives on Black
students’
experience. Our course offerings are
designed for a broad student constituency
interested in learning about Black experiences and honing skills in
critical
thinking and effective writing.Through
the prism of Black experiences, our courses also shed light on general principles of cultural
pluralism, racial diversity, and social stratification in the U.S. and
other
national and transnational contexts relevant to the Black Diaspora.
We
invite anyone with interests in any of these issues to
join us in our courses. We look forward to working with you. ~*~*~*~
Welcome
to the Renewed African American Studies Program (AASP)
at the
University of Florida.
The four core
principles of the program combine excellence in
scholarship with experiential learning. This structure honors the
applied roots of African American Studies and recognizes the broad
range of perspectives in the African Diaspora.
AASP's four principles are:
Interdisciplinarity: This principle
encourages a broad base of disciplinary theories, methodologies, and
methods. This approach allows each faculty member to begin from their
own position of expertise and systematically tie their work to other
necessary areas of social science and humanities.
Community-based learning: This focus
honors the applied, experiential, and activist model from which Black
Studies programs originally developed. Pedagogies of community
service-learning and advocacy scholarship are central to the engaged
nature of the program.
African American experience in a transnational
context: With this program foundation, the faculty grounds our
main study in the United States, but also understands the imperative to
connect the U.S. experience to the African and the wider African
diaspora.
Critical thinking, writing, and research
presentation skills development: The AASP faculty introduce
students from all disciplinary areas to African American intellectual
history, critical theory, and professional development. Students who
enroll in our courses or graduate with an AASP minor will be versed in
academic and scholarly administrative skills needed to succeed in the
next levels of research, teaching, and service in the field.