When the African/African-American Studies minor was developed at GVSU in 1996, the focus was more on America than Africa. But the program coordinator has worked to change that.
When we first designed the program we had African-American specialists, but part of our aim is to build the African segment of the program, explains Veta Tucker, the GVSU associate professor of English who coordinates the program. We needed to develop more courses on Africa.
The results of that initiative are now evident. Dr. Opuku Ayemang, a Fulbright scholar from Ghana teaching in residence at GVSU during the current academic year, has been a significant boost for the program's focus on Africa. Ayemang is teaching a course on African folklore this semester.
New GVSU faculty members, such as assistant professor of History Steeve Buckridge, have also helped the program. Buckridge is a specialist in African history. Veteran faculty members have also been able to contribute courses to the African/African-American Studies minor. Sociology professor Herb Bellrichard-Perkins taught a course on the African Diaspora last fall, and is currently leading a course called African-American Identity and Communication. Lois Smith Owens, a program coordinator in GVSU's School of Social Work, taught a course last fall called Black Elders, which compared West African traditions to the conditions of the aging black population in America.
We want to develop courses that students will find useful in their majors but at the same time move ahead in African studies, Tucker says. I think other schools are shortsighted in not having a dual focus on African as well as African-American studies. Students are seeing the value of the program.
Students choosing to minor in African/African-American Studies must take 21 credit hours. Other students taking courses in the program do so to fulfill a general education requirement. Regardless of their reason for taking the courses, the students represent a cross-section of academic disciplines on campus.
For example, Tucker mentions an education student who wanted to understand African literature and art for use in her classroom some day. Social Work majors have worked on independent studies with Tucker to learn more about the culture of African-American women. Next fall, Criminal Justice majors can benefit from a course about blacks and law enforcement taught by Lois Smith Owens. Other students taking African/African-American Studies courses come from the Seidman School of Business and the Kirkhof School of Nursing.
Tucker is working on a General Education theme segment of courses on the civil rights movement. The interdisciplinary program may include a Political Science course about race and civil rights over time, a History course about historical antecedents to the Civil War, a Sociology course on the structure of societal movements, and an English course on social biographies of people who were prominent in the movement. She is confident she could arrange the needed courses.
Since I proposed this theme faculty members on campus have been coming out of the woodwork saying 'I was in the movement' or 'I have a story to tell,' Tucker says. We can use these people to teach courses as well as to be resources for students to interview. We may even put together an exhibit of memorabilia that they have.
This semester 10 students have declared their intent to seek a minor in African/African-American Studies. Numerous other students are taking courses in the program as electives for their various academic programs. Tucker sees the diversity of students as one of the most pleasant results of the program.
Somehow they come with a sense that there's a population they want to know more about, she says. The first graduate with a minor in African/African-American Studies was a white male. He's now doing social work with urban populations, and he still keeps in touch with me.
