Inclusive Scholarship: Developing Black Studies - Ford Foundation

Inclusive Scholarship: Developing Black Studies in the United States 171
fore, in terms of the inclusion of materials related to African Americans.
This latter development, in turn, means that countless more students are
encountering Black-authored texts and considering issues related to Blacks
in their course work than in the past.
However, one of the sobering ironies of the 1990s has been that, despite
these gains, the institutional stability of the majority of Black Studies
units has not significantly increased over the past decade. Furthermore, the
dwindling number of Black students at many colleges means that the production
of future Black academics, scant even in the most flush of times,
will likely decrease in the near future. The dire consequences of this cannot
be overstated. Even if solutions are found that can reverse this trend, we are
already confronting a generation of administrators of Black Studies units
who may not have successors when they retire. This is not to overlook the
considerable administrative and scholarly contributions made by non-
Black faculty members in the field. Rather, one must simply acknowledge
the extent to which the careers of many Black scholars have been intimately
linked to the evolution of Black Studies at many schools. Finally, African
American Studies generally still provides a ready target for right-wing ideologues
looking for scapegoats in their assaults on the “sorry state of American
higher education.” This serves to remind us that the field that was
spawned—both intellectually and institutionally—out of political struggle
must keep alive that tradition of struggle if, as we enter the new century, it
is not only to grow, but to survive.
Organization of the Report
This report was commissioned by Ford Foundation Program Director Janice
Petrovich in the spring of 1998 and overseen to completion by Program
Officer Margaret Wilkerson.The reviewers were given a list of key topics and
questions by Petrovich and Wilkerson, which we used to guide our research.
The reviewers also asked each program to provide relevant documentation
in a number of areas. In terms of structure, the report provides individual
commentaries on the universities evaluated, arranged in alphabetical order.