Word: afro
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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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...
That Huggins did decide to come was viewed as fortunate. In the wake of student protest and Faculty concern, Rosovsky last fall formed the Afro-Am executive committee to search for more faculty to expand the department's senior ranks. After a nine-month investigation, the committee plucked Huggins, professor of history at Columbia University, to chair the department...
...sees his own acceptance as something of a turning point in Afro-Am's fortunes. "My coming makes a difference, and that's not immodesty, but I did choose to come here--at least it gives the impression to others that one person has persuaded himself that the University has a commitment to Afro...
Some students and Faculty expressed concern last spring when Huggins accepted the appointment on the condition that the Faculty also tenure him in History. Huggins, however, insists that there is no mistaking his loyalty to Afro-Am, saying, "It's a natural possibility that people who would have a place in another Harvard department would accept a joint appointment...
Others seemed worried about Huggins' stated view that Afro-Am is not a discipline, but an area of study. "Conventional disciplines ususally entail a method and a technique, and are discrete and distinctive. In these terms, Afro-Am is not a discipline," Huggins says, adding, "It has a perspective but not a method--and it has the flexibility to incorporate different perspectives." He considers the department "an adminsitrative unit" and adds jokingly, "I've known departments in my day that have had no discipline, academic or otherwise...