IUB’s Afro-American studies department gets new name, new chair

The department also has a new chairman, John H. Stanfield II, who was appointed during the summer to his position as professor of African American and African diaspora studies. He also assumes senior faculty status in IUB’s Department of Sociology. Stanfield comes to IU from Morehouse College in Atlanta where he was Avalon Professor of sociology and director of the Morehouse Research Institute.

According to Stanfield, the re-naming of the department more effectively represents the teaching and scholarly work present and past faculty have conducted during the past 32 years.

“Our new name also indicates a more comprehensive recognition of the history of African American studies as an academic, multidisciplinary/interdisciplinary field,” he said. “Most importantly, our new departmental name indicates our desire to revitalize our preoccupation with two long overdue trends in American higher education—first, the awareness of the historical and contemporary importance of social and cultural pluralism in the United States, and second, the growing need to explore and interpret American issues in global contexts.”

http://www.indiana.edu/~afroamer/afroamer-faculty.html