Professors Weigh In on National Black Studies Debate NEWS ANALYSIS

Author: Tim McCahill

The future course of black studies has come into focus among American academics in the field following a series of comments made by Lawrence Summers, the recently appointed president of Harvard University. Middlebury College professors in the field have heard much of the debate, but speculated that it had little bearing on the evolution of black studies at the College.

Summers, widely known for his combative style of management politics, raised eyebrows inside and outside academic circles for his criticism of Cornel West, a pioneer in the field of black studies and one of Harvard's most recognized professors. Summers' comments, detailed in a Feb. 12 article published in The Christian Science Monitor, were centered around West's recording of a rap CD and his close affiliation with controversial politician Al Sharpton.

The article cited Summers' comments as touching off a debate among black studies scholars on the nature of the discipline and its future in American colleges and universities.

As an academic discipline, black studies emerged in the late 1960s and early 1970s charged with the energy of the social activism of the era, maintaining its close affiliation with the Civil Rights Movement. According to The Monitor article, the first black studies department was founded in 1967 at San Francisco State University, representing a path-breaking approach to weaving a variety of academic disciplines — including political science and history — into a single program.

Development of black studies was accelerated by the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968, and by 1975 "there were 65 academic departments offering bachelor's degrees in the field at various U.S. colleges and universities," according to The Monitor piece.

As black studies evolved, however, its activist roots were gradually supplanted by an orientation that was more scholarly in nature. The Monitor article cited the field's expanding interdisciplinary approach to detailing the African American experience, with many institutions of higher learning adopting an even more diverse approach to instruction.

In this shift from the activist to the scholar lie the seeds of the current debate. Widespread recognition of black studies as a formal discipline has paid off, with universities like Harvard now offering some 43 courses taught by 11 professors, according to the article. But some fear that, as the field grows more diffuse academically, it may lose its grounding in the activist roots that originally defined it.



The Middlebury Interpretation



"The event at Harvard is revealing, it's troubling and it's puzzling in that it seems to suggest that it really does break into two camps," commented Associate Professor of History William Hart. "One asking, 'What is African-American studies really all about?' and the other one saying, 'Don't worry what it's about. We'll make it what we want it to be.'"

Hart offered a broad definition of black studies, describing it as "an interdisciplinary program that examines African-American life, culture, life-ways, history, literature — you name it. It's all of the above."

Hart conceded that Summers' comments had "touched a nerve" not only at Harvard but among black studies scholars across the nation. "I see this as a squabble between Summers and West and not between Harvard and African-American studies or African-American studies within the academy," he said.

Jim Ralph, who is also an associate professor of history, went to Harvard for graduate school and studied under Nathan Huggins, the director of African-American studies at the Harvard University for most of the 1980s.

"I find it striking that, a decade later, the president is wondering if the people connected to it [black studies] are as committed to scholarship as they are to public presentation," he commented.

"The Harvard of the 1990s is a very diverse school," Ralph said, citing the number of black studies scholars the University has hired since the 1980s. "Harvard has become a first-choice school for a lot of African-American students. What this shows is that you can have a strong program [that will] have an effect on the changing admissions profile of Harvard [at the undergraduate level]."



The Middlebury Connection



Hart speculated that "it was too early to tell" what the Harvard debate meant for a smaller college like Middlebury, but admitted that it would most likely have only a minimal effect.

Both he and Ralph played key roles in establishing the African-American Studies minor program at Middlebury in 1999. The professors manage the minor program along with Professor of Sociology and Anthropology Ellen Oxfeld and Assistant Professor of American Literature and Civilization William Nash. Students that elect to pursue the minor must take a total of four courses from disciplines that include history and sociology and complete either a "relevant 400-level course or an independent 500-level project," the College course catalog stipulates.

Ralph, who graduated from Middlebury in 1982, explained that when he was a student the College offered a course in black history taught by Thomas Cox, with an additional course in black literature emerging in the 1980s.

"What are our aspirations [for the minor]? We certainly want to strengthen the minor; we certainly would like to see more offerings in a variety of fields," Ralph said.

Possibilities do exist for transforming the minor into a major program, but, as Ralph conceded, "I don't know what to say about the future. It would require substantial resources."



The Future



Such aspirations could coincide with the College's commitment to diversity, formalized in October of 2000 with the creation of the Office for Institutional Diversity. The Office is headed by Associate Provost for Institutional Diversity and Associate Professor of German Roman Graf who, since assuming his position, has made strides to enhance Middlebury's incorporation of diversity — in its numerous socioeconomic, racial and sexual orientation manifestations — into its operating, admissions and instruction practices.

"These guys are major players [in the black studies field]," Graf said of Hart and Ralph, "and are really well known outside of Middlebury."

"I think this is a good time, because we do have the Office for Institutional Diversity, because the College has made a commitment to diversify the student body, the staff and the curriculum," Hart explained. While no specific plans as of yet exist for expanding the African American Studies minor, initiatives that fall under Graf's supervision — such as implementing an expanded Cultures and Civilizations requirement, beginning with the Class of 2007 — will undoubtedly complement any efforts in this direction.