Penn State Creates New Doctoral Degree Program in African American Studies
According to the university's count, Penn State will be the 12th university in the United States to offer doctoral degrees in African American studies.
Barnard College Elevates Africana Studies to Department Status
Barnard College, the highly rated liberal arts educational institution for women in New York City, has elevated its African Studies Program to a full academic department.
The Rebranding of the Martin Luther King Center at the University of Kentucky
The Martin Luther King Jr. Cultural Center at the University of Kentucky has been renamed the Martin Luther King Center and has revamped its mission to the university.
Michigan State University Begins Jazz Artist-in-Residence Program
The first artist-in-residence will be saxophonist Antonio Hart. He is a graduate of the Berklee College of Music and is a professor at Queens College, a campus of the City University of New York system.
Major Gift Endows a New Center for Black Studies at Harvard
Henry Louis Gates Jr., who has led the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for more than 20 years, was named the founding director of the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research.
Survey Documents the State of Black Studies at U.S. Colleges and Universities
A survey of 1,777 colleges and universities found that 76 percent of these institutions had Black studies programs to some degree. Some 20 percent of responding institutions had formal academic units, either departments or programs, dedicated to African American studies.
The Five New Fellows of the African Research Center at Penn State
The fellows are housed within departments in the College of the Liberal Arts at Penn State and conduct research on or related to Africa or the African diaspora. Each fellow is matched with a mentor on the Penn State faculty.
Berkeley Upgrades Its Multicultural Student Development Programs
Gibor Basri, vice chancellor of equity and inclusion at Berkeley, stated that the main purpose of these programs is "to provide a place where students in these populations can find community and a safe space to talk about the challenges of being in that particular community."
University of Missouri-Kansas City Names New Director of Black Studies Program
Adrienne Walker Hoard has been serving as professor of art and art education at the University of Missouri-Columbia. She previously taught at Ohio State University and Louisiana State University.
University Effort to Boost Civil Rights for African Descendants in Latin America
The Institute for the Study of Latin America and the Caribbean at the University of South Florida in Tampa, is undertaking an effort to obtain funding to hold a major training institute for African descendants in Latin America who are working for civil rights.
Oregon State University Constructing a New Black Cultural Center
The Lonnie B. Harris Black Cultural Center at Oregon State University in Corvallis is getting a new home. The original building is being moved to a community garden in the city and a new structure will be built at the current site.
Scholar to Examine Links Between the 1970s Black Power Movement and Australian Aborigine Activists
Alex Carter, a Ph.D student at the University of Massachusetts, will spend a full year in Australia, beginning in August, working with the Performance Research Unit and the Indigenous Centre at Monash University in Clayton, Victoria, near Melbourne. His research will also take him to Sydney, Brisbane, and Canberra.
Historic Marker Placed at the Site of 1963 Sit-In by Tougaloo College Students
Fifty years ago, students from historically Black Tougaloo College staged a sit-in at a lunchcounter in a Woolworth’s store in Jackson, Mississippi. The students were beaten by a White mob. Now a historic marker has been placed at the site of the old Woolworth's store.
Bethune-Cookman University Teams Up With the League of Black Women
Under the partnership Bethune-Cookman University, the historically Black educational institution in Daytona Beach, Florida, will become the research arm of the League of Black Women Global Leadership Research Institute.
Louisiana State University Opens Its New African American Cultural Center
The new, state-of-the-art African American Cultural Center will provide a meeting and conference space, access to a cultural library, a cultural and artifact tour, internet and wireless access and equipment rental. The center hosts a number of events and programs each year.
Summer Program Aims to Encourage Students to Become Professors of African American Literature
This June eight college juniors from across the nation will participate in the African American Literatures and Cultures Institute at the University of Texas at San Antonio.
Texas Bill Proposes That History Requirement Cannot Be Filled by Ethnic Studies Courses
Under the proposed legislation, only courses that present a "comprehensive survey" of American or Texas history could be used to meet the six-credit history requirement for all bachelor's degree recipients at state universities.
Vanderbilt University Receives the Papers of a Civil Rights Icon
The Rev. James M. Lawson Jr., a leading figure in the civil rights movement and an associate of Martin Luther King Jr., has donated a significant portion of his papers to the special collections division of the Vanderbilt University Libraries.
University of Florida to Offer a Major in African American Studies
The University of Florida in Gainesville has offered a program in African American studies for the past 45 years but until now students could not major in the discipline.
University of Pittsburgh Receives Donation of African Artifacts
Among the items donated to the university are a bronze casting of the head of a queen mother from Benin, a helmet mask made of wood and human hair from Tanzania, and a Kente cloth used by members of the royal court of the Ashanti people of Ghana.
University of South Carolina Project Seeks to Preserve the History of the Civil Rights...
Scholars at the University of South Carolina are establishing an archive documenting the history of the civil rights movement in South Carolina. The project is made possible by a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services.
George Mason University Receives Large Archive of Africana Materials
The collection, donated by John Paden, Robinson Professor of International Studies at the university, includes about 4,000 items including rare books, manuscripts, maps, and photographs.
Most of Timbuktu’s Vast Collection of African History Was Not Lost
The institute's library collection included approximately 30,000 volumes, many of which are one-of-kind manuscripts some dating back 700 years. Although the library was set on fire by a radical Islamist faction, many of the documents had been removed and others were found safe in a locked basement room.
Does Race Play Too Big a Role in the Teaching of U.S. History?
The National Association of Scholars released a report that criticizes the history department curricula at the University of Texas and Texas A&M University as being overly concerned with issues of race, class, and gender.
University of Arizona to Offer a Minor Degree Concentration in Hip-Hop
Among the courses that are offered in the minor degree concentration in the Africana studies program are Rap, Culture, and God, Hip-Hop Cinema, and U.S. and Francophone Hip-Hop Cultures.
University of Cincinnati Reopens Its African American Cultural and Resource Center
The African American Cultural and Resource Center. which was established in 1991, has been undergoing a major renovation project since last August.
Emory Opens New Archive of African American History to Researchers
The family papers of artist and civil rights activist Edwin Harleston and his wife, photographer Elise Harlston, have been fully archived and are now available to researchers at the university's Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library.
University of Michigan Launches the Understanding Race Project
From January through April, the university will feature public exhibits, lectures, performances, symposia, and other events examining the role of race in American society. During the spring semester, 130 courses dealing with racial issues will be offered students in a wide variety of disciplines.
Online Photographic Archive of the “First Blacks in the Americas”
The collection entitled, "First Blacks in the Americas," contains more than 2,900 photographs relevant to African history in what is now the Dominican Republic from the 16th century through colonial times.
Penn Looks to Hire Its First Independent Africana Studies Faculty
Since the creation of the Center for Africana Studies in 2002, faculty teaching in the field have all had appointments in other departments at the university.
New Project Documenting the History of Blacks at Yale Divinity School
The effort is under the director of Moses N. Moore Jr., a graduate of Yale Divinity School who is now an associate professor of religious studies at Arizona State University, and Yolanda Smith, a lecturer in Christian education at Yale Divinity School.
New Black Resource Center to Open at the University of California at San Diego
The new facility will have a library and offer tutoring services for Black students and workshops for law, medical, and other graduate programs.
New Summer Institute at Duke for High School Teachers in African American Studies
The new institute will instruct high school teachers on using historical literature and fiction to teach English and social studies classes on African American history.
Scholar Discovers the Only Known Painting of the Harlem Renaissance’s Gwendolyn Bennett
Most of Bennett's artwork was destroyed in a fire but in conducting research for a book on Bennett, Belinda Wheeler of historically Black Paine College in Augusta, Georgia, came across a 1931 oil painting.
The University of Texas to Offer Ph.D. Program in Black Studies
The doctoral program in Black studies is the first in the state of Texas and the first in the southwestern United States.
The Discovery of a New Novel by Claude McKay
Jamaican-born author Claude McKay died in 1948 but recently a researcher in the Columbia University archives discovered a novel penned by the key figure of the Harlem Renaissance.
