Inclusive Scholarship: Developing Black Studies - Ford Foundation

Inclusive Scholarship: Developing Black Studies in the United States 211
a short period, the director of University of Iowa’s program (who was also
about fifty) should send clear signals to University administrators and leaders
in the field. Maintaining these programs is not only intellectually demanding,
it is physically and psychologically stressful.
In sum, the Institute’s activities are impressive because the Director
and his faculty and staff are engaged in a variety of development efforts.
Butler and the Woodson have been unusually effective in their search for financial
support. They have applied to foundations as well as to internal
university sources for support. The University has also been supportive of
the Institute’s efforts, integrating the Institute into its fundraising efforts
and supporting the “Changing Cultures of Race in the Modern World”
seminar. The Institute’s proposals for a Distinguished Major and the
Emerging Scholars Program have also been supported.
The University is conducting a $750 million capital campaign which
began in July 1993 and concludes in July 2000. The campaign includes a
specific focus—presented in its brochure—on giving for interdisciplinary
programs (including Afro-American and African Studies) in the College of
Arts and Sciences. During the Ford consultant’s one-and-a-half-day visit,
the Director of Corporate Foundation Relations and Communications
spent most of the first day in presentations made about Woodson Institute
activities. It can be said, therefore, that the university has been supportive
of the intellectual developments within the Woodson. But it has been unwilling
to provide ongoing support for the administrative infrastructure to
manage those activities.
While this is not unusual and other universities have displayed similar
reluctance in these areas, the array of research projects fostered by the
Woodson Institute and the loss of one director makes this resistance somewhat
puzzling. One characteristic of the Institute is that the faculty and
various fellows are strongly, although not exclusively, concentrated in the
field of History. The density of the research focus in History, mixed well
with anthropologists, English faculty, occasional political scientists, and
scholars of African American Studies seems to yield a creative research and
teaching environment. As well, faculty in History and the Woodson Institute
are unusually committed to learning about and using new electronic