UCLA Faculty leaders considering plan for African-American studies department

The UCLA Academic Senate is reviewing a proposal to build on the strength and increasing popularity of the Interdepartmental Program in Afro-American Studies by converting it to a full academic department.


Since its founding in 1974, the program has built a reputation for outstanding scholarship and innovative courses that attract students from a wide range of backgrounds and draw on top faculty from sociology, history, communications and many other disciplines.


Departmentalization would help provide the resources needed to continue that trajectory by aiding faculty recruitment, expanding partnerships with professional schools and potentially developing a doctoral degree program, said Mark Sawyer, chair of the program and professor of African-American studies and political science in the College of Letters and Science.


"The diversity of the African-American experience in the U.S. is a vehicle not just for understanding African-Americans but for understanding all cultures and the social world, literature, the arts, history and other areas of intellectual inquiry," said Sawyer, who also directs the Center for the Study of Race, Ethnicity and Politics.



The proposal to create a department of African-American studies has the support of Chancellor Gene Block and other campus administrative leaders.



"The Interdepartmental Program in Afro-American Studies is a model of collaboration and innovative curriculum that reflects UCLA's commitment to robust scholarship and teaching," Block said. "Elevating the program to a full academic department would facilitate its growth in further service to both our students and to society."


Creating an African-American studies department would "immediately position UCLA as a major player among the top departments in the U.S. with a similar interdisciplinary focus," said Alessandro Duranti, dean of the Division of Social Sciences in the College of Letters and Science.

http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/faculty-leaders-considering-plan-249905.aspx
The College's Faculty Executive Committee unanimously approved the proposal for departmentalization last year.