University of Missouri-Kansas City Revamps Its Black Studies Offerings
The University of Missouri-Kansas City announced it is combining its Black studies, Latin American studies, and women's studies programs into a new academic department: The new Race, Ethnic, and Gender/Sexuality department.
University of Maryland Names Women’s Studies Department After Harriet Tubman
This is the first time that an academic department at the University of Maryland will be named after someone honorifically. The women’s studies department is the only one in the country that offers a Black women’s studies minor.
University of Oregon Now Offering a Minor Degree Program in Black Studies
Students minoring in Black studies will take 24 credits. The only required course in the minor is an introductory course with a focus on either African American studies or the African Diaspora.
Virginia State University Offering a New Course on HBCU History
Virginia State University is now offering what could be the nation’s first higher education course in the history of the Historically Black Colleges and Universities. This is the first semester that the course is being offered. It quickly filled to capacity.
Harvard University Gallery Creating a Living Archive of the Black Lives Matter Movement
The Cooper Gallery of African & African American Art is collecting protest posters, circulated artist zines, informational pamphlets, and any other printed media/functional artwork relating to the movement.
University of Kentucky Creates the Commonwealth Institute for Black Studies
The interdisciplinary institute will promote the university's research and scholarship on topics of importance in African history and African American history, such as slavery and the quest for freedom, racial discrimination and violence, and the long struggle for civil rights.
Two Public Universities in Florida Announce Efforts to Address Systemic Racism
The University of South Florida has created the Research Task Force on Understanding and Addressing Blackness and Anti-Black Racism in our Local, National and International Communities. The University of Florida has established the Racial Justice Research Fund.
California State University, Dominguez Hills Acquires Massive Archive of Black History
The collection from the Mayme A. Clayton Library and Museum contains more than 2 million rare books, films, documents, photographs artifacts, and works of art related to the history and culture of African-Americans in the United States, with a significant focus on Southern California and the American West.
Wright State University Libraries Debuts Online Anti-Racism Resource Guide
The staff at the Wright State University Libraries has created an online Anti-racism Guide providing campus resources, book recommendations, education videos, and more about racism and racial justice.
University of Alabama Birmingham Scholars Develop Pallative Care Protocols for Blacks
Where middle-class Whites may emphasize individual choice, African American values support family-centered decision making. Faith, spiritual beliefs, and guidance of a spiritual leader are very meaningful to African Americans, especially as they cope with illness and make treatment decisions.
Florida Institute of Technology to Begin New Program in African American Studies
The new minor degree program will have interdisciplinary courses aimed at studying and fostering further understanding of the social, political, economic, and cultural forces that impact the lives of Black people in the U.S. and those in the Caribbean, Africa, and around the world.
University of Iowa to Launch the Midwest Institute of African American History and Culture
The Midwest Institute of African American History and Culture at the University of Iowa will focus on research opportunities, educational possibilities, seminars, and workshops so that visitors and educators can better understand Black history.
Alumna Calls for University of Pittsburgh to Require Students to Take a Black Studies...
Sydney Massenber, an alumna at the University of Pittsburgh who is starting law school this fall, has started a petition calling for the university to require all undergraduate students to take a Black studies course in order to meet graduation requirements.
American University Creates the Department of Critical Race, Gender, and Cultural Studies
The new department at American University in Washington, D.C., will focus on six areas of study: African and African American diaspora studies, American studies, Arab world studies, Asian studies, Latinx studies, and women, gender, and sexuality studies.
University of Lynchburg to Launch an Africana Studies Major This Coming Fall
Students in the program will explore race-related questions and study the lives of Africans and people in the African diaspora. Africana studies combines a core intro class and a capstone project with existing courses from a variety of disciplines, including history, English, sociology, psychology, and music.
Scholar Donates 100 Pieces of African American Art to the Yale University Art Gallery
Robert Steele spent 40 years on the faculty of the psychology department at the University of Maryland, College Park. He then served nearly a decade as the director of the university’s David C. Driskell Center, which supports the study of African-American art.
University of Georgia Has Mounted an Oral History Project of Early Black Students
While some of the recollections are memories of forging new paths, other stories reflect a continued culture change on campus with stories of racism, bias, and protests in classrooms, dorms and around campus.
Preserving the Writings of Anna Julia Cooper
Recently, the Humanities Center at Syracuse University partnered with the Colored Conventions Project to host a local transcribe-a-thon of the writings of Anna Julia Cooper. The community service project's goal was to transcribe the writing of Dr. Cooper and create a digital archive of her work.
Tuskegee University Acquires the Pritchett Collection of African Studies Manuscripts
The Pritchett Collection includes more than 1,400 African studies manuscripts amassed over a 40-year period. The collection focuses on research on the African diaspora and studies of African-descended people in the Caribbean, Brazil and elsewhere in Central and South America.
New Center on Racial Healing to Be Established at the University of Arkansas
The University of Arkansas has announced that it is establishing a Truth, Racial Healing & Transformation Campus Center. The center will focus on creating transformative and sustainable change in areas relating to diversity and inclusion.
University of Kansas to Offer a Graduate Degree Program in Diversity and Inclusion Leadership
The program is designed to offer graduate students and working professionals the tools and techniques to better navigate leadership opportunities within the context of social diversity and equity in the United States.
Harvard University Launches a New Intitiative to Examine its Historical Ties to Slavery
Tomiko Brown-Nagin, dean of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, the Daniel P.S. Paul Professor of Constitutional Law at Harvard Law School, and a professor of history, will chair the new initiative which will be called Harvard and the Legacy of Slavery.
University of Florida Opens a New Home for Its Institute of Black Culture
In 1971, the Institute of Black Culture was established after a series of peaceful protests from Black students advocating for their rights ended with 66 students arrested or suspended for occupying the university's president’s office. Now the Institute has a new home on campus.
Haverford College Unveils a Collection of Works by Philosophers From Underrepresented Groups
A new collection at Haverford College in Pennsylvania aims to showcase philosophers who are not White and not male.
Rice University in Houston Debuts its Center for African and African American Studies
Anthony Pinn, the Agnes Cullen Arnold Professor of Humanities and professor of religion, will serve as the center's founding director.
Buffalo State Hires Three Faculty Members to Staff Its New Africana Studies Major
Buffalo State University is using funds from the State University of New York's Promoting Recruitment, Opportunity, Diversity, Inclusion and Growth (PRODI-G) initiative to hire new faculty members to strengthen the university's Black studies efforts.
California Lutheran University to Add an Ethnic and Race Studies Major
About 45 percent of California Lutheran University’s traditional undergraduate students from the United States identify themselves as Latino, black, American/Alaskan native or multiracial.
Boston College Now Offering a Major in African and African Diaspora Studies
Black studies was established a half century ago at the college, but until now there has not been a major in the subject. The new major explores the history, culture, and politics of Africans on the continent and African-descended peoples in the U.S. and around the world.
University of Glasgow Agrees to Pay £20 Million in Reparations to the University of...
The sum of £20 million was the amount paid to slave owners as reparations by the British government when it abolished slavery in 1834.
Penn State Hires Nine Scholars in African American or Diaspora Studies
Pennsylvania State University has announced that it has hired nine scholars who will all be affiliated with the university's department of African American studies. Seven of the nine hires are Black scholars.
New Boise State University President Pressured to End Diversity and Inclusion Programs
A letter from 28 GOP members of the Idaho House of Representatives urged the new president of Boise State University to abandon at least some of the university's diversity and inclusion programs. The letter said that such initiatives were "antithetical to the Idaho way."
Vanderbilt University Establishes Partnership With the National Museum of African American Music
As a part of this new agreement, Vanderbilt will pledge $2 million in contributions and direct financial support to the museum. These funds will expand the museum's archival collection, contribute to innovative programming, support the completion of the facility, and more.
University of Oregon Seeking Nominations for Naming of Its New Black Cultural Center
The new center is scheduled to open prior to the fall 2019 semester. It will serve as a home base for academic and social activities of Black students and a place where other students and visitors can learn about the Black student experience at the University of Oregon.
Purdue University’s Black Cultural Center Designated as a “Distinctive Destination”
The Black Cultural Center at Purdue University has been designated as a "Distinctive Destination" by the National Trust for Historic Preservation. Purdue's Black Cultural Center is only the sixth location in Indiana to receive this honor.
University of Kansas Offering New Minor in African & African Diasporic Languages
The study of foreign languages and cultures will be a foundational element of the minor, as well as regional competency and cultural understanding.
Washington University Establishes the Center for the Study of Race, Ethnicity, & Equity
The Center for the Study of Race, Ethnicity, & Equity at Washington University in St. Louis, will support student research, attract visiting scholars, and create opportunities for collaboration among faculty, students, and members of the St. Louis community.
