African American Studies Program

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.

Welcome to 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 50^th 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.



	Home Faculty & Staff Courses Minor Announcements Program History Links Support UF AASP NEW 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. Welcome to 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 50^th 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.


		Last Updated 7/15/2005 Have a Question? Contact us.

Welcome

***Dr. Faye V. Harrison***

Dr. Faye V. Harrison