Inclusive Scholarship: Developing Black Studies - Ford Foundation

Inclusive Scholarship: Developing Black Studies in the United States 61
them all to rely on funds generated year by year and on the generosity of a
host institution. Furthermore, most university-based institutions can rely
on university faculty to generate their own funds, which then can be funneled
through the appropriate institute. Scholarship on Afro-American
topics is in no university general enough to offer much help in this way.
Afro-American institutes’ directors and program officers must both generate
their own programs and discover the scholars to do the work.
Varieties of Curriculum
A continuing debate rages as to whether Afro-American studies is a legitimate
discipline. Many in the Black Studies movement have taken this question very
seriously and have attempted to define the discipline in a core curriculum.The
National Council for Black Studies, in a 1981 report, defined the purpose and
rationale of such a program: (1) to provide skills; (2) to provide a standard and
purposefully direct student choice; (3) to achieve“liberation of the Black community”;
(4) to enhance self-awareness and esteem. Black Studies, the report
says,“inaugurates an unflinching attack on institutional oppression/racism.”It
also aims to question “the adequacy, objectivity and universal scope of other
schools of thought; it assumes a critical posture.” 37
The National Council apparently understood discipline to mean doctrine,
for it goes on to outline in detail a course of study that would cover
the four undergraduate years. It would begin in the African past and end in
the American present, touching on the non-Black world only to show
racism and its oppressive consequences. If students following this program
were to take courses in the sciences, or acquire any of the specific analytical
skills associated with the social sciences, they would have to take them
as electives. There have been other efforts to design a core curriculum in
Afro-American studies, for example, at the University of Illinois-Chicago
Circle. Such efforts are notable for their attempt to create an undergraduate
curriculum totally independent of other departments and offerings.
Limited budgets and the interdisciplinary nature of mostAfro-American
studies programs make it impossible to staff such a program as the National