Word: afros
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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With that sentence, Dean Rosovsky reflects the frustration of ten years of wrangling, rhetoric, and demonstrations over the substance and direction of Afro-American Studies at Harvard. The department had its tenth anniversay last April, and no one--students, faculty or administrators--can look back over these years complacently...
...students chanted, Rosovsky moved quietly to put the errant department in order. In meetings with departmental junior faculty, the Faculty Council and President Bok, Rosovsky discussed how to shore up the faltering department. Last week, he unveiled a plan he believes can restore some direction and vitality to Afro-American Studies--the creation of an executive committee of five senior faculty to run the department. The committee, composed of prominent scholars who have intellectual connections with Afro-American Studies, has several tasks, Rosovsky says...
...Afro-Am's senior faculty and guide it in making key policy and personnel decisions over the next few years...
...committee members--C. Clyde Ferguson, professor of Law; David Donald, Warren Professor of American History; Richard Freeman, professor of Economics; Orlando Patterson, professor of Sociology; and Eileen Southern, professor of Afro-American Studies and Music--will work first on developing a clear intellectual goal for the department, Ferguson says. Once the committee has agreed on what the intellectual thrust of the department should be--whether policy-oriented or primarily academic, for example--then the committee will find it easier to seek out scholars. "Getting a focus begins to tell you who you want, why you want them...
...examining the department's curriculum, its teaching and its faculty quality in an effort to "bring the department in line with other Harvard departments." He notes that perhaps the most important task of the committee is to convince the Harvard community, especially its students, of the intellectual legitimacy of Afro-American Studies. "Students are acutely conscious of the fact that the study now has relatively little status, and have a right to be concerned," he notes...