Inclusive Scholarship: Developing Black Studies - Ford Foundation

142 Inclusive Scholarship: Developing Black Studies in the United States
ties and services. Both of these women came to Cornell from schools with
very limited resources (the University of the Virgin Islands and the University
of Lome, Togo, respectively) and felt tremendously fortunate to be able
to work at Cornell. “At Lome,” Assie-Lumumba told us, “I was the library.”
Particularly in the case of Assie-Lumumba, the more senior of the two scholars,
the Ford Fellows lent prestige to the Cornell program as a faculty of researchers.
The key to Cornell’s renewed success is Professor Robert Harris who embodies
the goals and values of the Center; and,in his quiet but forceful way,has
guided it to its new position as a full partner in the greater Cornell mission.
Working with colleagues across the campus,Harris has made Cornell’s historic
emphasis on the Africanness of Africana Studies work in a way that suits Cornell’s
particular academic culture.He has forged links with David Lewis,director
of Cornell’s Institute for African Development to co-sponsor (in the truly
collaborative sense of that term) programs for specialists both in African culture
and political/economic development. Such a partnership takes advantage
of Cornell’s identity as a public institution (though, in fact, a private university)
concerned with practical issues of policy-making in such areas asAgriculture
and Business. Scholars coming to campus to study problems of drought
relief are,therefore,well served by the Center’s programs inAfrican Languages,
History, and Art, as well as in the sciences and social sciences.
Cornell is a real “teaching school.” The graduate students we met are
very serious and enthusiastic about the Africana Studies Program. They are
thrilled by the availability of new faculty, thanks to Ford; and they are connected
with programs that take them into local schools—spreading the
word of Black Studies.
This is a program excitingly on the rise.As indicators, the team-taught
courses (one in Black/Jewish relations, for example), campus-wide lectures
and exhibits and the growing roster of Black and White students, all speak
well for the “new Cornell.”