Inclusive Scholarship: Developing Black Studies - Ford Foundation

174 Inclusive Scholarship: Developing Black Studies in the United States
issues. This latter observation appears to have contributed to a highlighting
of gender in the final year’s seminar coordinated at Cornell by Professor
N’Dri Assie-Lumumba, “Knowledge, Freedom, and African Renewal.” Indeed,
formal steps were taken from the outset to obtain feedback from the
participants of the seminars and workshops; and it is clear that the resultant
comments and suggestions received serious attention.
A problem noted by one of the faculty coordinators involved the extent
to which the student participants in the seminars brought widely varying
levels of expertise in African/African American Studies. This problem
is, of course, hardly unique to this common seminar; it often arises in crosslisted
Black Studies graduate courses in which the students enrolled come
from different departments within the same university. This pedagogical
challenge is one not often encountered to the same degree in graduate seminars
that are limited to students within a single discipline. Accordingly, it
would merit some serious attention in the context of a broad-based consideration
of the teaching of Black Studies. Finally, two of the faculty coordinators
from Cornell expressed regret that they had not been able to receive
teaching assistant or research assistant support in their work on the common
seminars. Although it might involve the same amount of lecturing as
a conventional offering, overseeing a seminar such as the ones mounted at
Cornell can be extremely demanding logistically; budgeting for adequate
staff support could ease the load on the faculty coordinator considerably.
Africana Studies at Cornell University
In terms of longevity and influence, the Africana Studies and Research Center
(ASRC) at Cornell has to be considered one of the leading such units in
the country. The ASRC was founded in 1969; two years later it began offering
B.A. and M.A. degrees. Since 1973, it has granted 64 master’s degrees,
making it surely among the nation’s leading programs in that category.
That ASRC occupies its own building on campus is but one literal indication
of its institutional independence; another is the fact that ASRC reports
directly to the Provost, not through an intermediate administrator.
Perhaps the distinguishing characteristic of Africana Studies at Cornell
is the fact that it has, from the outset, represented a curricular and ide-