50 years within the making: African and African American Research program departmentalizes in January

The African and African American Research (AAAS) program will change into its personal division in January, after 50 years of scholar advocacy.

The AAAS program was the primary ethnic research program carried out at Stanford, and provides main and minor applications. Within the 2022-23 college yr, there have been 15 declared majors.

Pupil advocacy

Departmentalization advocacy will be traced again to 1968, in line with former president of the Black Graduate Pupil Affiliation (BGSA) and fourth-year sociology Ph.D. scholar Kimya Loder. Since then, college students have constantly contributed to advocacy efforts for departmentalization. 

Loder was concerned in the latest wave of departmentalization advocacy that started round 2020. Following the demise of George Floyd, she, together with others, together with AAAS director Allyson Hobbs, created a petition calling on the College to departmentalize AAAS. The petition garnered round 5,000 signatures. 

Contributing to departmentalization advocacy efforts, former BGSA president Darion Wallace, a fourth-year Ph.D. scholar finding out race, inequality and language, joined BGSA’s AAAS Departmentalization Committee, the place he and different college students researched Stanford’s peer establishments and their Black research organizational infrastructure. Wallace concluded that, in comparison with its prime 10 peer establishments, Stanford was the “solely establishment to not have some devoted assets and a division academically housed throughout the College Senate that interrogates Black life and historical past to this degree.”

“College students have been demanding a division of Black research over the previous 50 years, however Stanford had failed to interact with that demand,” Wallace mentioned.

Wallace mentioned it was vital to acknowledge the function of scholar advocacy in AAAS departmentalization. “Oftentimes, the best way wherein AAAS departmentalization is mentioned leaves out the longstanding historical past of scholar advocacy behind the division. [But] truly, there have been numerous actually onerous conferences with the administration.” 

Wallace mentioned early on within the course of, the administration had expressed “alarming” considerations across the vitality of African American Research at an establishment like Stanford. In accordance with Wallace, BGSA members researched and educated directors on the mental historical past and world affect of African American Research on campus and past.

Loder mentioned that after the college agreed to departmentalize AAAS, she sat on the Framework Activity Power, a gaggle composed of scholars and school, to plan out the AAAS division by growing curriculum in a collaborative effort with college at peer establishments reminiscent of Harvard, Princeton and UCLA. After practically a yr of conferences with members of assorted Black research departments, the duty drive was capable of construction their very own division, contemplating which kinds of programs they needed to offer and which thematic focuses they needed to implement.  

Advantages of departmentalization

In accordance with affiliate professor of English and a member of the Framework Activity Power Vaughn Rasberry, changing into a division will give the AAAS program newfound authority to rent their very own college members. 

“Solely departments can rent their very own college,” Rasberry mentioned. Packages, alternatively, depend on college from different departments to show their programs and often battle to seek out college with the time and willingness to decide to their applications, Rasberry mentioned.

In accordance with Raspberry, departments don’t face the identical problem as a result of they’ve full-time college whose major obligations are to that division. Much like AAAS, most different ethnic research, reminiscent of Jewish Research and Chicana/o-Latina/o Research, are applications.  

Having full-time college will enable college students to entry extra cohesive course choices and discover main advisers inside their division, Wallace mentioned.

In accordance with Wallace, departmentalization will even streamline the method for graduate college students to get entangled with Black research coaching in idea and methodology. 

Dean of the Faculty of Humanities and Sciences Debra Satz wrote that whereas constructing an undergraduate program is the present focus of the AAAS division, there are additionally plans to construct a graduate program afterward. 

“In not having the grad program, undergraduate college students are lacking out on that skill to interface intergenerationally with Black research students,” Wallace mentioned. “[There is a] lack of mentorship in Black research that many people are wanting to have, however as a result of there’s no pathway for graduate college students to interact with the division, many people have to seek out that on our personal.”

Trying ahead

Rasberry mentioned the division nonetheless has quite a lot of selections to determine, together with hiring college and administrative employees, planning the way to use the area of their new constructing, connecting and collaborating with different departments, reaching out to alumni and figuring out the way to develop the division. 

“I hope that our division will evolve right into a world class mental hub for the Research of African American life, the African continent and the worldwide African diaspora,” Rasberry mentioned. As well as, Rasberry mentioned he hopes college students from all disciplines interact with the AAAS division, as a result of the division has “one thing distinctive and highly effective” to supply everybody.

Rasberry mentioned departmentalization of the AAAS program sends the highly effective sign that the College is deeply invested within the area of Black research. Loder mentioned she hopes the division continues to be community- and grassroots-oriented. She needs the AAAS division to really feel distinguishable to “conventional departments,” as a result of she hopes the AAAS division can act as an area for mental dialogue, in addition to a middle of group for Black college students and people all for Black research alike.

“After I first got here to Stanford, this system in African and African American Research felt very very similar to a house,” Loder mentioned. “I hope that on this transition, that feeling is barely amplified.”