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During the past year, it was a privilege
to serve as Chair of the Department of Black Studies,
a department that has been engaged for over thirty-five
years in the dissemination of meaningful, inclusive,
and relevant teaching and research and service to the
larger community. Warm words of appreciation to the
faculty, the administrators, the students and members
of our staff whose sustained efforts helped both the
Department of Black Studies and the Center for Black
Studies Research reach yet higher levels of excellence.
The Department of Black Studies at
UCSB has had a very productive academic year in 2005-2006,
continuing to make broad scholarly gains and re-affirming
its long-lasting community involvement. The faculty
published a number of important books and essays and
was active at national and international conferences
and symposia. We redesigned the major and minor in
Black Studies, adding a new capstone seminar and new
requirements at both the lower and upper division levels;
we revamped our curriculum to reflect new trends in
our three areas of emphases—urban studies/politics
and social policy, culture and representation and gender
and sexuality; we revisited course syllabi, GE requirements
and exams in order to ensure the highest standards
in our course offerings; we received a significant
instructional grant to purchase new instructional material
and increase the digitization of some of our courses;
we put in place a more refined teaching assistantship
training program; we reinvigorated our efforts to support
and work with students outside the classroom; we joined
in outreach and retention efforts for students; we
sponsored and co-sponsored numerous programs and activities
on campus and in the larger community; we laid the
foundation for a new scholarly journal; we increased
our level of collaboration with the Center for Black
Studies Research and other research units on campus
and off-campus; we applied for various campus and extra-mural
grants; we enlarged our pool of faculty and courses
by inviting eleven faculty from other departments to
become affiliated members of Black Studies; we hosted
visiting faculty who offered classes that our students
had requested on pressing urban issues; lastly, we
made a number of significant ladder faculty hires.
With the hiring of three new faculty, Professors George
Lipsitz, Clyde Woods and Gaye T.M. Johnson (the latter
being both former UC post-doctoral fellows), the Department
was able to grow exponentially in 2005-2006 in the
newest areas of its curriculum—policy and inequality
and urban studies—allowing us to align ourselves
with the Social Science Division’s efforts to
develop multidisciplinary approaches to the study of
urban life in America. In one year, we went from literally
having no faculty working in this cutting-edge field
to now being able to make significant curricular and
research contributions to this important area of scholarship.
Being at the center of these types of intersectional
discourses redefining new frontiers in the social sciences
and ethnic studies will automatically engage the UCSB
Department of Black Studies in national and international
conversations that will propel us into new spheres
of influence in urban and policy studies in the 21st
century.
While the department had put on hold its discussion
of a graduate program, we anticipate resuming the conversation
shortly, as the prospect of not having the possibility
of a Ph.D. program might have a chilling effect on
recruitment and retention efforts in the long-run.
We expect that the appointment of our three new faculty
members in Black Studies as well as the appointment
of eleven more affiliated faculty might facilitate
the establishment of our graduate program in a not
too distant future.
At the close of what was a very productive academic
year, it is easy to foresee that the Department of
Black Studies with a distinguished faculty engaging
in cutting-edge research and teaching and committed
to fulfilling a public mission will continue to shine
as one of the premier departments of its kind world-wide.
The new research paradigms and models of engaged scholarship
emerging from our forward-looking Department of Black
Studies along with the work being done at our vibrant
Center for Black Studies Research will without doubt
play a key role in the re-shaping of the American cultural,
political, educational and economic landscape in years
to come.
Again our appreciation to all who continue to build
and sustain our vision and programs.
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