Inclusive Scholarship: Developing Black Studies - Ford Foundation

138 Inclusive Scholarship: Developing Black Studies in the United States
(with no teaching duties) and could give a lecture series (two lectures per
term), each at a different school. One can easily imagine someone like Deborah
McDowell or Manthia Diawara giving such a lecture series. Each lecture
could be preceded by an introductory note on the host school’s
resources in Black Studies and followed up by discussions with faculty and
students. Each session could be set up as a sort of mini-conference, with papers
and responses given by scholars at the host school. Some students
could attend all lectures; perhaps Maryland and the other schools might be
able to set up the series of meetings or conferences as a course. Perhaps the
series would culminate in a large, special conference and/or a book. There
are other ways to work out such collaborations. But the point would be to
share resources in Black Studies and to bring together the community of
African Americanists.
Of course, the plan outlined so far would work best in a metropolitan
area like Washington, New York, or Atlanta, or in a setting like Amherst,
Chapel Hill, or Claremont where consortial arrangements already are in
place. At other places, where the lines of communication are not so direct,
or where distance is an added problem (one thinks of the state university
systems, for example), we are not sure what to suggest. If a “floating conference”
model would not work in the way outlined above, perhaps a
statewide topic could be fixed; seminars led by visitors could be conducted
at home campuses culminating in a statewide conference at year’s end.
Transportation to this gathering for students and faculty could be provided
and a volume of the year’s findings made available.
At some schools where there is no significant department or program
in Black Studies, serious African Americanists nonetheless go about their
business with significant success as scholars and as teachers. How could
Ford help such people? Perhaps by setting up individual teaching and/or research
awards, the field could still be enriched in a very profound way.
Scholar X who is struggling to teach a truly interdisciplinary course could
be given a grant to invite five or six visitors to address the class. This approach
might be particularly helpful in an introductory Black Studies
course, but not only there. According to this same sort of model, individual
Scholar Y could get a grant to attend four conferences over a two-year pe-