Inclusive Scholarship: Developing Black Studies - Ford Foundation

232 Inclusive Scholarship: Developing Black Studies in the United States
As Black Studies comes of age in the twenty-first century, it still has important
intellectual and institutional challenges to confront. Although there are those
who will forever question the legitimacy of African American Studies as an intellectual
discipline, the field itself must move beyond such tiresome debates
and focus instead on its continued growth and development. The wide range
of ideologies,perspectives,and stances is testament to the continued evolution
of the field.Indeed,the legitimacy of such traditional disciplines as History and
English is not questioned simply because diverse perspectives and emphases
exist—sometimes within the same department. Sociology and Anthropology
have undergone profound internal struggles over their direction and purpose,
yet they continue to exist as legitimate and important areas of study.
Why is Black Studies under such scrutiny? Certainly, African American
Studies scholars need not respond to such diversions every time a journalist
1 decides it’s time to write about a “crisis” in the field? To do so takes
away from the important work that remains to be done.
The Foundation recognizes the need for African American Studies to
exist inAmerican institutions of higher learning.For over 25 years,it has provided
support to African American Studies departments and programs at a
limited number of institutions. It has also spread its resources beyond that
number through the support of consortia that include a range of institutions,
and graduate programs whose graduates go on to teach at diverse institutions.
The Ford Diversity (formerly Minority) Fellowships program helps to
sustain a diverse professoriate, many of whom go on to make contributions
to African American Studies. The documents in this volume demonstrate
how Foundation support extended to a variety of institutional arrangements
that fostered creativity in formal and informal structures to benefit African
American Studies and the university at large. These arrangements provide
examples of not just “best practices” but working practices that ensure the
long-term stability of this vitally important academic field. The reports also
speak to the fact that many college students who takeAfricanAmerican Studies
courses go on to become teachers, journalists, activists, lawyers, and doctors
committed to a more democratic society. These students—and their
professions—have benefited greatly from African American Studies.
The Foundation’s most significant contribution can be found in the
partnerships it established through its grant making with individual schol-