This year marks the 30th anniversary of the African–American Studies Program at Penn A look back on the program's birth reveals a movement sparked by protest; an examination of the current discipline exposes a continuing struggle for acceptance.By Rebecca Blatt
In February of 1969, more than 400 students and faculty members took over College Hall in what was referred to as the "Science Center Sit-In." They were protesting a new Penn-sponsored science center that required the demolition of neighboring communities.
Demonstrators packed the halls of the University building. They brought sleeping bags and camped out for days. Students and faculty gave passionate lectures about civil rights and community responsibility.
As a result, what began as a protest against the new science center erupted into a forum for discussion about the importance of diversity. Students spoke out in support of a new discipline -- African-American Studies.
It was just one of many public demonstrations that led to the formation of the African-American Studies Program at Penn during a time of widespread social unrest and political activism.
It was the age of long hair and bra burning. It was a period concerned with civil rights and the Vietnam War. Across the country people took to the streets and demanded change.
Penn was no exception.
"It was an era of revolution," African-American studies proponent and current Microbiology Department Chairwoman Helen Davies remembers. "People felt, things can happen, we can do things. It was like there was a great new world possible."
In the midst of anti-war rallies and women's liberation protests, the black students at Penn began to mobilize. They used the protests of the '60s to create a venue for their collective voice. Their request: attention to blacks within the realm of academia.
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| Professor of Public Policy and History Ted Hershberg in 1968[DP File Photo] |
In February of 1968, three representatives of the Society of African and African-American Students met with then-History Department Chairman Alfred Rieber. They demanded that a course be taught in African-American history.
Rieber responded.
Professor of Public Policy and History Ted Hershberg taught the first African-American history course offered anywhere in the Ivy League, and it saw a huge enrollment -- 435 students.
"They were there for political protest, they were there because of the Civil Rights Movement, they were there because this had never been done before," Hershberg says.
But Hershberg's class was only the beginning.
Students wanted recognition as a field within the University -- they wanted an African-American Studies Program. And the following year they demanded it -- with the "Science Center Sit-In."
Eventually, the University responded to the pressure, and created a special commission to look into how to incorporate the subject.
The commission struggled for three years with the form African-American studies should take at Penn, resulting in the conception of the African-American Studies Program in 1972.
But the program did not receive automatic acceptance and acclaim. It only offered a handful of courses, and Penn barely had enough professors to teach them.
"African-American Studies was used as a kind of sop to keep black students quiet," says Robert Engs, a History professor who served on the commission. They thought "that if you give them an African-American studies program they'll stop taking over buildings. So many people were willing to let the program exist simply as a way of keeping the 'colored people' quiet," he says.
Guards were stationed to protect records in College Hall on a 24-hour basis since demonstrations began in the '60s.[DP File Photo]
Thirty years later, the African-American Studies Program is doubtlessly more than just a "sop."
More than 20 professors are now associated with the Program - about 15 of whom are of black descent. This semester it offers 38 courses. It also provides an inter-disciplinary major and minor.
But the Program works with a larger purpose in mind: filling the gaps left open by the traditional academic curriculum.
The Program "started in the beginning and made a lot of other disciplines aware that if they're not going to supply this information that is obviously available, and that's imperative in terms of fully understanding the discipline, then African-American Studies is going to basically fill that void," College senior and African-American Studies major Taj Frazier says.
He adds, "It expands the realm of what's being talked about."
College senior and African-American Studies major Charmelia Bond says that her first African-American Studies course marked a turning point for her.
"It was the first time that I had been able to sort of express myself as an African-American and to study myself at the same time," Bond says.
Bond also says that she thinks non-black students who have taken African-American Studies courses have left the classes with a new perspective.
"They had a different sense of what it was like to be in America and be discriminated against."
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But although students feel a sense of acceptance within the African-American studies community, they continually struggle to justify their work to students and faculty outside of the Program.
| College seniors and African-American Studies majors Taj Frazier and Charmelia Bond in an interview last week[Lina Cherfas/The Daily Pennsylvanian] |
Critics tell them African-American studies is not useful or marketable. Some believe the Program is just not as rigorous as others.
"It's unnerving to feel that the thing you've chosen to study and you really find an interest in isn't held as highly as other programs or other disciplines," Bond says.
College senior Adam Leon chose the major because he likes the interdisciplinary nature of the Program and wanted to investigate his own beliefs about race. But he feels he may face even more scrutiny because he is white in a predominately black major.
"Almost every white person I tell is almost appalled," Leon says. "I think that most people I know think that the major is black people basically talking about themselves."
He also says that for a long time he was too embarrassed to admit he was an African-American Studies major. During his sophomore year, he continued to say he was undeclared even when it wasn't true. He simply did not want to have to justify his decision.
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In the continuing struggle for acceptance and respect, however, Penn's African-American studies students are not alone.
The discipline has received both support and criticism on a national scale as well.
According to Penn alumnus and Rutgers University African-American Studies Department Chairman Wayne Glasker, African-American studies has become part of "culture wars and identity politics," as he says some believe that focusing on a particular ethnic group will polarize the nation.
In addition, a recent surge of media attention to the subject brought further scrutiny to the field. Supporters of the discipline utilized the attention to vocalize their perspective as well.
It began with a controversy at Harvard, reported on in major newspapers this past year. It involved Lawrence Summers, the university's president, and African-American Studies Department Chairman Cornel West. The story highlighted the prominence of the African-American Studies programs at Harvard and Princeton.
Frazier says that he thinks the controversy pushed Penn to promote its own program as well.
"That was kind of a wake-up call to Penn," Frazier says.
"It was an open call that, as an Ivy League institution that is within a clearly metropolitan area, you need to make some changes."
And in the last year, Penn has made changes.
The University hired four new faculty members associated with the African-American Studies Program for this fall -- including high-profile scholar Michael Eric Dyson.
In addition, this summer it promoted the African-American Studies Program to the Center for Africana Studies. It now includes studies of the African diaspora in a larger context. The change further enables research in the field and provides the program with a new office in which to grow.
"This kind of maturation into the Center for Africana Studies reflects the intellectual development in the field more generally and the maturation of the Program here at Penn," says Center for Africana Studies Chairman Tukufu Zuberi.
But the program still struggles with various limitations.
Bond and Frazier express concern that the program has not been effectively publicized.
"We don't have students of color wanting to come to Penn because they don't see a program that can help them or further them in some way," Bond says.
The program also has not achieved departmental status within the University. That means it lacks the power to hire its own faculty and extend tenure to its professors. For that, it must rely on related departments.
| Ted Hershberg, who taught the first African-American studies course in the Ivy League, in 2002[Mary Kinosian/The Daily Pennsylvanian] |
Engs says the status of the program has been limited because of several factors. He says there is resistance among conservative faculty who do not want it to have the power to hire professors. He also says the small number of majors (currently 13) might threaten the existence of the program if it had to compete with other departments.
"The security of the program would not necessarily be guaranteed," he says.
Therefore, the program continues to justify its existence in order to survive.
"We've grown, probably by leaps and bounds, even in the last several months," Bond says. "But there still isn't that acceptance within the Academy saying that this is OK and this is valid."
