Word: afro-am
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...with the job of running a department born of what Dean Rosovsky once labeled "an academic Munich." Gazing out the window from behind his desk, Huggins seems steeled to the task and regards his new post with a sense of equanimity. "I have no misgivings about the future of Afro-Am at Harvard. I'm persuaded that the president and the dean are committed to a viable, attractive concentration," he says, adding, "Otherwise, I certainly would have no reason to come...
...Afro-Am recruitment has been caught in a vicious cycle. The greater the turmoil and the accompanying publicity, the more difficult it has become to persuade qualified academics to take a risk and cast their lot with Harvard. Afro-Am supporters hope Huggins' arrival will break the pattern and lure a batch of talented faculty to the building on Dunster...
...Afro-American Studies and a scholar of Ethiopian languages, literature and Church history, filed suit this summer against the University, charging bias in the decision to deny him tenure. Isaac contends that Harvard discriminated against him because he is strictly an "Africanist." Rosovsky has said in the past that Afro-Am should place emphasis on the "Americanist" side of the concentration. The University's defense in the case is that the Faculty's instructions to give preference to Americanists over Africanists was not discriminatory, but a matter of field preference...
...part, Huggins says he doesn't "find Afro-Am an either/or proposition--it is a study of Africans in the new world principally, but not exclusively. We're naturally interested in African culture and society. We're interested necessarily in the Caribbean, and perhaps in Latin America for comparative purposes." But, Huggins adds quickly, "No program can take the world as its field. Africa is a very rich field in itself. I do not see us becoming an African studies department...
...When students discover it's possible to develop skills that will serve them in the future, that's how we'll get our concentrators," Huggins adds. No matter what, Afro-Am faces a watershed year. The bristling skepticism about the Afro-Am Department on campus is rooted in a history of tension and controversy, and it will be a while before officials can dispel doubts about the future. And no matter what, all eyes will focus on the placid figure of Nathan Huggins, who has just sat down in the hottest of hot seats...