Howard University’s College of Arts Sciences announced a new ongoing scholarly book series in the field of Black studies called “Black Lives in the Diaspora: Past/Present/Future,” to be published by Columbia University Press in partnership with Columbia University’s African-American and African diaspora studies department.
This collaboration between Howard University and Columbia University and its faculty is the first of its kind in academic publishing. It represents the first step in a larger partnership between the two universities to publish more robustly in Black studies and to recruit and support a cohort of editorial fellows to provide an entryway for recent HBCU graduates to begin careers in the publishing industry.
An editorial board of eight faculty – four each from Howard University and Columbia University – will oversee the new series. Acquisitions for two to three publications per year in the new series will begin immediately. Funding is currently being sought to expand the program to publish up to 20 titles per year and augment the staff of Columbia University Press with a new full-time Black studies editor and graduate student fellows.
The dimwitted people at Howard University College of Arts and Science should be ashamed for partnering up with Columbia University in order to get a “scholarly book” published. I can only imagine who will be the titular head in making final publication decision. What happened to Howard University Press? Who do you think will benefit the most with this “partnership”? It appears that many of these so-called Black administrators at Howard and many other HBCUs make unwise decisions that are borderline traitorous.
I wonder what the editor from the Journal of Negro Education feel about this decision.