Photo by Yan Krukau: https://www.pexels.com/photo/students-inside-a-classroom-in-the-university-8197545/
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Stanford Univesity, through its Board of Trustees, has officially approved the creation of a Department of African and African American Studies. The department is set to open in January.
R. Lanier Anderson, the J.E. Wallace Sterling Professor of the Humanities, shared that the school needed to make the department a “permanent” fixture in its academia in light of the historical moment.
The university will allow tracks of African, African American, and Global Black Diaspora Studies to be available for interested students. The inclusion of courses associated with Black studies will also be provided, alongside a collaboration with the Institute for Diversity of the Arts, as students within the department will have the opportunity to connect their learning through creative means.
Quayson, an avid reader of Toni Morrison, commenced the vote for the AAAS department with a reading from the author’s acclaimed work Beloved, which was met with much applause before the approval.
The news comes as Stanford makes additional changes to better the experiences of its diverse student body, including an advancement to better accommodate disabled students’ need and expansion within the arts.
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Source: Black Enterprise
