$1.2m Five College African Scholars
program launched
Writing and research are focus of effort
ast week marked the inauguration on campus of
the Five College African Scholars Program. Funded by a $1 million
grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and $200,000 grant
from Smith College, the program will bring upwards of 25 scholars
from African universities to the five campuses over the coming five
years to work on their writing and publishing projects.
According to the
program's director, Anthropology Department chair Ralph
Faulkingham, faculty at African universities often labor under staggering
teaching loads and few have the opportunity for sabbaticals to complete
research projects and to bring them to print in journals with a
global reach. Each scholar selected will be in residence for either
a semester or a year, and will interact with other scholars and
the Africanist faculty of the Five Colleges in a weekly brown-bag
seminar. There are no teaching obligations, and each resident scholar
is provided with a laptop computer and a modest research expense
allowance.
With one of the
largest concentration of faculty with Africanist interests anywhere
in the U.S. and with the African Studies Association's leading journal,
the African Studies Review, being edited here, the Five College
community is the perfect venue for African scholars to take a productive
sabbatical and to lay the foundation for future collaborations with
each other and with the host faculty, said Faulkingham.
While African
universities gain by developing their faculty's research and publication
profile, there is a substantial payoff for the host faculty here
as well, he added. The visiting scholars bring with them a wealth
of experience, research, and insight into contemporary African realities,
especially in the arts, humanities, and social sciences which will
engage the interest and sociability of the host faculty.
Faulkingham noted
that when he and Mitzi Goheen of Amherst College began editing the
African Studies Review, they resolved to increase the number and
quality of essays authored by Africans based in Africa, primarily
as a way to keep the journal grounded in contemporary African theories,
interests, and sensibilities. The Five College African Scholars
Program will directly facilitate that goal, Faulkingham said, as
the resident scholars will have ready access to the journal's extensive
international peer review network.
Lee Edwards, dean
of the College of Humanities and Fine Arts, has made space available
for the program in Herter Hall. Political Science professor Carlene
Edie serves on the committee that is now engaged in selecting the
first cohort of resident scholars who will arrive on campus next
January. Assistant professor Léonce Ndikumana in Economics
is a member of the program's executive committee.
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