Inclusive Scholarship: Developing Black Studies - Ford Foundation

Inclusive Scholarship: Developing Black Studies in the United States 191
and Ph.D. degree programs in Asian Studies and Latin American Studies—
not in African Studies.
In terms of its course offerings, the African American Studies department
maintains a somewhat uneasy relationship with the Center for the
Teaching and Study of American Cultures, which oversees the approval of
courses that can be used to satisfy the breadth requirement in American
Cultures that Berkeley instituted in 1991. A sizable number of the department’s
regular offerings are on the list of approved American Cultures
courses, which has resulted in an increase in enrollment. At the same time,
it is unclear whether a significant portion of the resources allocated to the
American Cultures Center to support the creation and reworking of
courses has flowed to the African American Studies department.
Possibly as a result of the decreasing enrollment of African American
Studies students in the wake of anti-affirmative action legislation in California,
there appears to be a drop in the number of African American Studies
majors; meanwhile, enrollments in the department’s courses remain
high as students take them to fulfill their breadth requirements. There is
some apprehension that should this trend continue, the department would
gradually become something akin to a service unit. Some faculty members
also noted the change in classroom dynamics as a result of the influx of nonmajor
students who might never have enrolled in the department’s courses
were it not for the American Cultures requirement. That courses approved
for this requirement have to be comparative has likely affected the design of
some offerings in Ethnic Studies and African American Studies as well.
What is clear amidst these intricate, interlocking institutional networks
is that the faculty in Ethnic Studies generally and in African American
Studies in particular are mightily overworked. The Ethnic Studies
department, which houses fifteen FTE, has the highest student-faculty ratio
in the Social Sciences Division. The faculty in African American Studies is
likewise stretched quite thin. For example, the Chair of the department
teaches five courses a year to help staff the curriculum.
One part of the problem is the sheer volume and diversity of the academic
workload that the department has to bear. In 1996–97 the unit