Inclusive Scholarship: Developing Black Studies - Ford Foundation

Introduction
The end of the twentieth century marks roughly thirty years of existence
for the oldest formally established African American Studies units 1 at U.S.
colleges and universities. It also marks the close of another round of funding
initiatives in the field by the Ford Foundation, an organization that has
played a key role in the growth and stabilizing of the field in institutions of
higher education for some time. Accordingly, the time is right for an assessment
not only of the effectiveness of the most recent Ford-funded programs,
but of the state of the field itself.
As one head of a Black Studies unit recently observed with no little bitterness:
what other fields have been subjected to so many evaluations, reviews,
and reconsiderations? Indeed, he suggested, such public scrutiny
might ironically serve to contribute to some of the perceived institutional
instability that plagues academic units in the field. Furthermore, because
such evaluations have almost inevitably focused on certain universities and
not on others, there may have been a tendency to reinforce a hierarchy of
privilege among both Black Studies scholars and institutions that ultimately
works against the overall health of the field. That some of these projects involved
consortia of universities and colleges is, however, a sign that there
are, in fact, some structured attempts to “share the wealth,” so to speak.
However, while we are sensitive to the thrust of hierarchical concerns,
given the way the Ford projects were structured, we will first review particular
institutions and then address collective concerns in our recommendations
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