Inclusive Scholarship: Developing Black Studies - Ford Foundation

120 Inclusive Scholarship: Developing Black Studies in the United States
$300,000. For this study, O’Meally and Smith followed up on the recipients
of these large-scale grants to “leading departments, programs and centers.”
The goal of the grants had been to encourage the next generation of scholars,
support research projects, and disseminate the best new scholarship. 1
Four Ivy League and six state schools were the recipients of these grants. Ford
monies helped to support graduate students and, in one instance, provided
grounding for the establishment of the Ph.D. program. The Ford funds also
provided needed resources, reduced by fiscal crises, to the state institutions.
All in all, Ford Foundation funding gave prestige to individual programs
and their campuses and allowed the development of new structures:
advanced degree programs, summer institutes, courses, and conferences.
The authors acknowledge the impact of the field on traditional disciplines,
its creation of newer interdisciplinary methodologies, and the leadership
provided by the field to Ethnic Studies.
Following an evaluation of the uses to which specific programs put
Ford funds, O’Meally and Smith generate a valuable list of best practices
gathered from the most successful programs, including:
1. Committed partnership from schools’ top administrators.
2. Programmatic leadership that perceives the mission and culture of
the institution as a whole and designs courses of study and other
structures accordingly.
3. Flexible and expansive broad-based leadership that initiates dialogues
regionally, nationally, and internationally.
Indeed, O’Meally and Smith recommended broadening the scope of
funding that encourages connections across a city or region through seminars
or floating conferences—especially in places like New York and Washington,
D.C.—noting that this model would also help scholars in institutions
where there are no African American Studies programs or departments. The
authors further recommended support for large research projects that help
create the necessary tools for the discipline.
Envisioning future concerns about the relationship between Ethnic
Studies and African American Studies, O’Meally and Smith caution that