MISSION STATEMENT

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• African American Studies;
• African Studies;
• Caribbean Studies;
• African Diaspora Studies. 

Students are also provided an opportunity to study abroad at universities in Africa, the Caribbean and in Cuba.

African American Studies plays a pivotal role in the University of Buffalo’s mission “to build upon the many cultures and traditions that have shaped us and our nation, in order to better prepare our students and state for the global community and economy of the 21st century.” By expanding UB’s overall mission to this vital area African American Studies creates educational programs that will promote equality, freedom and social justice in a sustainable society. 

African American Studies also has the responsibility of preparing students for the job market.  While most of our graduates pursue careers in teaching, law, and public policy (or they continue on to graduate study), the department is expanding its curriculum to provide education appropriate to the needs and opportunities of the 21st century.  As it stands now we recommend a series of tracks that include:
 

• Health and the environment,
• International affairs and development, 
• Gender and globalization,
• Bioinformatics and technology, 
• Public policy and legal studies,
• Museum studies and
• Arts and culture.

In addition, the Department of African American Studies participates in community services, especially in African American communities in Buffalo and Western New York. The Department has a Community Service Program that is active and a Center for Interdisciplinary Research in the Teaching of Africana Studies in Secondary Schools (CIRTASS), which will be revived in the near future, after a few years of dormancy. The Department also will form partnerships with service programs in Buffalo and with other UB schools and departments for the sake of pursuing our Department’s goal of delivering meaningful service to communities in Buffalo and Western New York.  The department is working with museums and historical societies and other not-for-profits to disseminate further information on Africa and its Diaspora.
 

• broad thematic periodizations and chronology (from the perspectives of empire, race, diaspora, and resistance) of African history, and the place of Africa in world history from antiquity to the present.
• the broad parameters (from the perspectives of internal developments as well as external relations) of the current socio-economic, political, and cultural circumstances of the people of the African continent.
• broad thematic periodizations and chronology (from the perspectives of identity; oppression and resistance; and democracy and social justice) of the socio-economic, political, and cultural history of the African diaspora in the Americas, and the role of the African diaspora in the history of the Americas up to the present.
• the role of African Americans (together with other minorities) in the evolution of U.S. constitutional democracy through their struggles for democratic participation and inclusion.
• major descriptive and analytical themes in the current socio-economic, political, and cultural circumstances of the African diaspora in the Americas (including their relations with other racial minorities).
• major descriptive and analytical themes in the historical role of the women of the African diaspora in the Americas, and in their current socio-economic, political, and cultural circumstances.
• the major literary and audio/visual texts—both fiction and non-fiction—that document aspects of past and/or present socio-economic, political, and cultural circumstances of the African diaspora in the Americas (including their relations with other racial minorities).

VISION

The Department of African Studies has a diversified and strong undergraduate program. We hope to expand the number of students whom we teach and graduate as majors. 

African American Studies has in recent years participated in the Masters of Arts in the Humanities degree program. In the near future AAS will develop its own Masters of Arts degree program. This will fill a major void, because of the paucity of programs at the graduate level in New York and nationwide.  Only Cornell University and the University at Albany in upstate New York currently offer an M.A. degree in African American Studies.

The Department of African American Studies is one of UB’s most important departments that are devoted to curricular programs concerning areas that are historically disadvantaged, underprivileged, and underserved. Consequently, this Department has an obligation to help the rest of the University to be sensitive to justice and equity issues as a way of realizing UB’s mission goal. 

African American Studies plans to increase the national and international scholarly reputations of its faculty by supporting grantsmanship, research, and publishing opportunities.

African American Studies also plans to enhance its relationship to the Western New York community by becoming a conduit through which research on African Americans flows, and to be an advocate who articulates the community’s needs.  The department would like to increase its internships at community-based agencies and to offer courses within the African American community.