Inclusive Scholarship: Developing Black Studies - Ford Foundation

Inclusive Scholarship: Developing Black Studies in the United States 189
Campus Council [which] emerged out of two working group meetings of the
U.C. system-wide African and African American Studies faculty.” 15
Imaginatively designed and successfully executed (a member of the
review team attended a portion of this event), the conference was divided
into two parts. The first day of the conference centered on a number of
workshops that addressed the current state of African and African American
Studies and that drew upon faculty members and administrators from
relevant units throughout the University of California system. The second
day involved a series of panels on topics touching upon a number of disciplines
and constructed to encourage comparative discussions. This conference
presented an excellent range of scholars from around the world and
attracted a large, diverse audience. The conceptualization of the first day’s
events, in particular, might serve as a useful model for other such meetings
that Ford might support across the country.
The Berkeley project also involved communication and dissemination
components. One example was the formal relationship established between
the department and Social Identities: Journal for the Study of Race,
Nation, and Culture, a British publication. Although no Ford funds were
used directly for the journal, this connection was part of a larger effort on
the part of the department to facilitate intra-institutional and international
scholarly exchange, an effort that was central to the Ford project. Ford
funding did go toward the purchase and maintenance of computer equipment
that, in turn, was used to set up the department’s newsletter, The Diaspora,
as an online journal and to upgrade the technological resources
available to the department’s faculty and students. Finally, the Ford project
included a library support component which allowed for acquisition by
Berkeley of key African American collections that would facilitate ongoing
faculty and student research.
African American Studies at the
University of California, Berkeley
The history and current institutional situation of African American Studies
at the University of California at Berkeley are complex. California’s racially