Africana studies revamps goals

More than 30 years ago, opportunities in higher education for black students matched the… More than 30 years ago, opportunities in higher education for black students matched the overall racism toward the black population in America. Despite the odds, black Pitt students stepped up and demanded a department to acknowledge their history. In 1969, the Pitt became one of the first schools in the nation to start a black studies department.

Friday, that department – now called the Africana studies department – disclosed their plans for changing and strengthening the department to the public in the Frick Fine Arts Auditorium.

During the course of the last year, the department created a 17-page document outlining revisions to their academic approach and the subsequent implications that change will have on their mission, curriculum, students, faculty and future.

“We are determined to move ahead,” said Joseph K. Adjaye, a professor and chair of the department.

According to Adjaye, in doing so, the department focused on answering the question of what “fundamental themes, issues and paradigms” Pitt students should have when they graduate.

The new approach to the Africana studies department will focus on researching and examining philosophical, social and individual transformations associated with three cultural patterns.

The first area is formation, including African origins and African civilizations before European colonialism. The second area is oppression through enslavement, colonialism and exploitation, and the effects this oppression had on African cultures. The final theme is recovery. This area will study methods and results of resistance, and cultural reconstruction and reclamation.

Adjaye said that, in short, the objective of the Africana studies department is to answer the question, “What happened?”

Unlike many other departments, students majoring in Africana studies are encouraged not only to research and study the black experience, but also to create social change, according to Adjaye.

N. John Cooper, dean of the Faculty and College of Arts and Sciences, who gave the welcoming address, agreed that this activism was very important to Pitt.

“We are very deeply committed to our service mission,” he said. “[Knowledge] can’t be locked up in books. It has to be disseminated.”

Following Cooper, Professor James Turner of Cornell University praised Pitt’s Africana studies department.

“The University of Pittsburgh is at the forefront [of black studies],” he said.

Turner then spoke about the historical and current struggle for blacks to overcome racial stratification and prove their competence. The idea that “the Negro was without a past” was used to justify slavery, restricting blacks from reading and even being read to, Turner explained.

Then from 1969 to 1970, the black studies movement reached a high point, transforming modern education, according to Turner.

“It opened discourse in the university,” he said.

Following Turner’s lecture, a panel of discussants responded to his speech and to the overall impact and future of the Africana studies program.

“We look to the Africana studies department for leadership,” said Stanley Denton, director of multicultural education in Pittsburgh public schools.

He also said that although some people may question the need for such a program, the program continues to be valuable and necessary.

Oliver Byrd, senior vice president of Citizens Bank, commended the department, but focused on several areas that could be strengthened. Specifically, he believed students needed to have the ability to answer the diagnostic question, “So what?,” and the prescriptive questions, “Now what?” and “What’s the future?”

Khafre K. Abif, a 1992 Africana studies graduate, reflected on how the guidance within the program helped him in his career as a children’s librarian.

Then a current freshman in the department, Kianga Mungai, described how the department has helped to provide her with a “multicultural education.” She said she hoped the department would one day move on to offer a graduate level of Africana studies.

“I wish I would have had a program like this growing up,” said the last speaker, State Rep.-Elect Jake Wheatley, of the 19th District.

He said he wished the program provided a component allowing students to want to reconnect, not merely pushing them to reconnect.

“[The program] has to always question itself,” Wheatley said.

Likewise, he urged students and faculty to ask the question, “Am I really being relevant?”