AAST educates and engages with students and faculty in topics related to black culture, history, race, diaspora, gender and ethnic identity.
THE ROLE OF AN INTERDISCIPLINARY DEPARTMENT AT AN URBAN, PUBLIC RESEARCH UNIVERSITY
Like many of our national counterparts, the strong intellectual arguments for the program were accompanied by political organizing by faculty, students and members of the local community who made strong claims about the University’s obligation to be more open and accessible to the diverse population of citizens in Chicago. In particular, the case was made that since UIC was founded as a land-grant institution, because we sit in a major urban area with a sizeable Black community, and given the wealth of local history related to the study of race and ethnicity, establishing an intellectually vibrant Department of African American Studies was not only possible, but critical to the growing national prominence of this University at that time. So, while the inception of AAST here was part of the larger intellectual trend in the mid 1960’s that was beginning to recognize scholarship on race and ethnicity as legitimate academic areas, the particular origin of this program at this university is noteworthy and has important implications for the role of the Department today.
The most important activity we engage in is providing a high quality undergraduate education to students who choose to major in African American Studies and to expose other students to the growing body of scholarship in the area. The curriculum is interdisciplinary, with courses that focus on the social sciences, the humanities and history. Secondarily, the Department of African American Studies works to support the recruitment, retention and professional advancement of African American faculty and scholars whose work is concerned with Black Studies, and facilitates a relationship between UIC faculty, students and staff and the broader Chicago community of scholars and institutions whose work is consistent with the goals and mission of UIC. The faculty are among the most recognized in their fields and the students are smart, curious and engaged in both classroom and external learning opportunities. Together with the dedicated staff, The Department of African American Studies at UIC is an intellectually vibrant community located in the heart of the City of Chicago where the values of access and excellence meet.
Nicholas Brown
Department Head
Professor of African American Studies
University of Illinois at Chicago
Awesome & intelligent undergraduates prepared to bring a sophisticated conception of black history and politics into an increasingly complex American sociopolitical sphere.
