Alumnae Bulletin November 2008
Re-Engage - Black alumnae/i conference
Africana Studies program finds a home
Every year, Bryn Mawr and Haverford students make 600
enrollments in courses that fulfill the Africana Studies
minor, which focuses on Africa and its diaspora. Swahili is
among those offerings, as are courses in African American
history, urbanization in Africa, and witchcraft in Africa, all
developed by Kalala J. Ngalamulume, Bryn Mawr's Assistant
Professor of Africana Studies and History.
In addition students can study in Kenya, Senegal
and Ghana.
"We are really putting Africa on the map for students,"
said Professor of Sociology Mary Johnson Osirim.
But it wasn't always thus.
Ngalamulume and Osirim outlined the history of the
BiCo Africana Studies program for Bryn Mawr's Black
Alumnae/i Conference. Also on the panel were Professor of
Anthropology Philip Kilbride, and Associate Professor and
Chair of Religion at Haverford College Tracey Hucks.
When Kilbride first began teaching at Bryn Mawr in
1969,"African studies was not on the agenda whatsoever," he
said. In those days only one course, offered by the history
department, touched upon the experience of African
descendents in America.
That changed, Kilbride said, when Harris Wofford became president of Bryn Mawr in 1970.Having served as
the Peace Corps' representative to Africa,Wofford made it a
priority to recruit African and African American students to
Bryn Mawr.
Soon after Wofford's arrival Kilbride taught a course
called African American Heritage. He recalled the memorable
term paper of Anne Staveren '73, who traced the African
origins of popular hairstyles among African American
women. The Heritage class grew from eight students
in the first semester it was offered to an average of 50 or
60 students in subsequent semesters; Kilbride eventually
team-taught the course with Professor of Sociology
Robert Washington.
In the 1980s, Kilbride and Washington made regular
trips to Africa, bringing Bryn Mawr students with them and
recruiting African students to study at Bryn Mawr.
But it wasn't until 1985, when Osirim was hired, that
Africana studies at Bryn Mawr became truly
institutionalized, Kilbride said.
"Twenty-three years ago, when I first came here, I was
completely amazed that there was no Black Studies
program—that was what we called it then—at Bryn Mawr,"
Osirim said."I was amazed that there was also no program
in gender studies when I came. There were loose configurations—
workshops, talks, sharing papers—but there were no
organized programs. In 1985, that was the state of affairs."
In that era the notion of ‘BiCo' was just getting
established, and out of that collaborative spirit the BiCo
Africana Studies was born, created in living rooms, Osirim
said—the result of many meetings involving around 20
faculty members.
Osirim remembered hearing "many comments in various
venues—‘you're not gonna get this here at Bryn Mawr.' There was
this notion that we had this pie in the sky kind of dream.
"But the program was created as the initiative and the
concern of both students and faculty,"Osirim said."The faculty
wanted this.We were doing the research anyway, we were
teaching the courses anyway, so why is this not recognized as a
rigorous academic field?"
Thanks to a Ford Foundation grant awarded to Haverford, in
which Associate Professor Paul Jefferson played a major role, the
first official BiCo team-taught Africana Studies class—
Emancipation, Decolonization, and Social Reconstruction: Africa and
the Americans in the Modern Era—was offered. It was first teamtaught
by Jefferson and Bryn Mawr Professor of Political Science Michael H. Allen, and later by Osirim and Haverford Professor of
History Emma Lapsansky.
"The class really brought together the two institutions,"
Osirim said, and with a small budget the program was able to
hire a student assistant, invite speakers to campus, and purchase
library sources.
The program really burgeoned in 1993 with funds from a
Department of Education Title 6 grant allowing the University
of Pennsylvania,Haverford, Bryn Mawr and Swarthmore College
to share resources and faculty. The schools creating an academic
consortium focused on Africa—its languages, cultures,
development, and societies.
The grant, said Osirim, was "one of the best things we did. It
gave us a real home, and through that Consortium we were able
to offer Swahili, and it is still running strong."
Osirim called the Consortium and the BiCo Africana Studies
programs "very important intellectual anchors.We are small
institutions linked in very special ways.We've been given a home."
Hucks discussed the national conversation surrounding
Africana studies programs. In general, she said, the status of such
programs is "unstable in terms of institutional support and
resources. Programs are not becoming departments, but being
maintained as programs. Departments have greater integrity in
an institution," she said.
Also of national concern is that the connection to local
communities—which often gave rise to these types of programs
to begin with—has been lost."We talk about issues in classrooms,"
Hucks said,"but we need to connect to real people living
real lives.We need to have a sense of responsibility to them."
Osirim urged alumnae to earmark contributions for the
support of Africana Studies internships or service learning
opportunities, or the hiring of Africana Studies faculty."It has a
ripple effect," she said."I don't care if you contribute 25 dollars.
The donation becomes symbolic, and it makes the institution
realize what is important to some alumnae."
— Alicia Bessette
