Afro-American Studies celebrates 25th

and Mike Jaccarino The 25th anniversary celebration of the University's Afro-American Studies Program kicked off yesterday with a full slate of speeches and panel discussions. The two-day event, entitled, "The 21st Century and Beyond," commemorates the program's formation by bringing together some of the country's top scholars in African American studies. In his introductory remarks at the Faculty Club, Afro-American Studies Director and English Professor Herman Beavers outlined the purpose of the conference -- to bring scholars from different disciplines together for constructive dialogue. "In the past we've brought together intellectuals from just the social sciences and the humanities," Beavers said. "Now we're trying to bring in all sorts of people -- from the business and medical professions as well -- to try to find common ground and to learn how to communicate under the larger umbrella of Afro-American studies." He said the conference also celebrates the accomplishments of African American studies programs nationwide, while also keeping an eye towards the future. At a morning session entitled, "African American Studies: Past, Present and Future," Eleanor Traylor, Howard University's English Department chairperson, described the nationwide struggle in the 1960s to establish programs at universities. "This is a student-oriented study -- a student-guided study and a student- called-for study," Traylor emphasized. She noted that the movement for creating African American studies programs began 29 years ago with a group of University of California at Berkeley students who demanded change. Carrying copies of African American literature that had not been considered part of the canon of American literature, the students wanted proper recognition for a part of history that white culture had ignored. More than two decades after its initiation, the University's Afro-American Studies Program has received such recognition -- but it still has a long way to go, said Beavers. "It says something that we're still around 25 years after we started," he noted. Beavers also attributed much of the program's success to the support from the Office of the President, which he said represents an institutional commitment. He did note, however, that he would like the program to have the financial ability to sponsor conferences on a regular basis -- not just every five or 10 years. "It's advantageous, attractive, full of possibility," Beavers said of the anniversary conference. "This is not the time for political correctness. It's an opportunity to move beyond the polite dialogue and to really voice our opinions and ideas." And yesterday's speakers did just that, taking the opportunity to urge redefinition of the African American studies field. Abu Abarry, Temple University professor and graduate director of the African American Studies Department, stressed that the field needs to be looked at and studied as a whole, not as a disparate array of courses. "We need to train scholars to centralize their learning," he said. "Our task is one of redefinition and reconceptualization -- we need to bring all aspects of the discipline together as a whole." Noting how this "redefinition" has occurred, Abarry added, "We had to become African history professors and African English professors rather than just history and English professors." Beavers, meanwhile, emphasized that the conference is not an opportunity to complain about racism. "We aren't going to spend time talking about how we can get back at whites," he said. "We want to discuss how we can transform society."