Shabazz named new chair of Afro-American Studies

Amilcar Shabazz, associate professor of history and director of American studies at Oklahoma State University, has been named the new chair of the W.E.B. Du Bois Department of Afro-American Studies.

Shabazz succeeds Esther M. A. Terry, who has headed the department for the past 19 years.

Terry, who is also associate chancellor, says, “Our department is entering a new phase of qualitative development with a number of key announcements expected during the coming academic year in terms of faculty activity and partnership links. Shabazz’s experience is the perfect fit for us, and we look forward to many productive years ahead.”

A member of the Oklahoma State faculty since 2005, Shabazz previously taught for eight years at the University of Alabama, where he was associate professor of American studies and the first director of the African-American studies program.

Shabazz earned his bachelor’s degree in economics in 1982 from the University of Texas at Austin, a master’s degree in history from Lamar University, and a doctorate in history from the University of Houston. His academic work has a strong focus on African, African American and Latin American studies.

Shabazz is the author of “Advancing Democracy: African Americans and the Struggle for Access and Equity in Higher Education in Texas,” published in 2004, and is co-editor of a book on reparations as well as a new volume, “Women & Others: Perspectives on Race, Gender, and Empire,” to be published in the fall.

He is a Fulbright senior specialist for 2004-09 and carried out educational work in Brazil, Japan, Ghana, Mali and Jamaica, among other countries. He is also an active volunteer with many not-for-profit cultural, community and professional organizations.

The W.E.B. Du Bois Department of Afro-American Studies is one of the largest such departments in the country, offering an undergraduate major and a highly selective doctoral program that seeks to reproduce both the scholarship and the social commitment of the Massachusetts-born intellectual W.E.B. Du Bois. Growing out of the work of a committee composed of graduate students and faculty almost 40 years ago, the department launched its Ph.D. program in 1991.

Although not the first class to graduate, nine students from the department were awarded their doctorates in May. According to the department, the five men and two women were the largest group of black candidates to receive the Ph.D. from a single department in the history of the campus.

July 6, 2007.

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