13) During the program development period, the Committee should consult with relevant individuals and groups outside as well as within the academic community.

14) The Committee should be restructured periodically in order to include new members of the Faculty.

15) The Committee on Afro-American Studies should immediately appoint a personnel committee to seek faculty members as outlined in paragraphs 2, 3, and 6. This personnel committee should be composed of an equal number of faculty and student members, in recognition of the students' high degree of interest, knowledge, and competence in this emerging, and in some ways unique, field of study. Student members should be selected by arrangement with the Ad Hoc Committee of Black Students and in consultation with other interested student groups.

16) It is hoped that the Committee on Afro-American Studies will add to its membership, at the discretion of the Committee and for certain particular purposes, student members as well as visiting faculty.

17) A central point of the Committee's work should be the establishment of a Center or Institute for Afro-American Studies. The purpose of this institution would be to provide intellectual leadership, a physical locale, and sufficient material resources for consideration of all aspects of the Afro-American experience. In addition, the Center should have funds to provide fellowships and research assistance particularly for men and women connected with predominantly black colleges, universities, and other institutions. The Center should, like the Institute of Politics, have a student advisory board.

Immediate Action

AFRO-AMERICAN and African Studies are two very different fields. The former is a new field and for the immediate future will remain primarily concerned with issues of definition, content, and expansion. By contrast, African Studies is an established field within general regional studies, and it should surprise no one that Harvard has a long and distinguished history in this branch of learning. In fact, in the years 1910 to 1915 Harvard pioneered African Studies in the United States; furthermore the University has remained a very active participant since that time.

These points deserve to be stressed because there is an impression that Harvard has somehow slighted African Studies. We did not find this to be the case, and in order to provide the necessary background, begin our assessment of the field with a brief historical review. As will be shown later, despite many years of activity, some problems remain. Therefore, certain recommendations will be made to improve the existing situation.

Although we fully agree with the need for stabilization and careful expansion, we also believe that this can be achieved without a separate African Studies Program. African Studies at Harvard--unlike Afro-American Studies--has had the advantage of satisfactory and congenial growth within established disciplines. It would be foolish to give up these advantages now, especially since stabilization and expansion can be achieved in other ways.

1) We recommend the establishment of a co-ordinating Committee on African Studies. The Committee should be chosen from Departments presently involved in aspects of African Studies. Student representation on the Committee is also recommended; these should be selected by the two branches of the undergraduate constituency concerned with African Studies.

2) The Committee on African Studies should be authorized to oversee the future increase and stabilization of courses in African Studies, with special emphasis on contemporary African society, culture, and politics.

3) Though the Committee on African Studies should work out its own methods for realizing the mandate invested in it by the Faculty, the following lines of action are offered as suggestions:

a. The Committee on African Studies should encourage and otherwise influence Departments like Government, Economics, History, Social Relations, Anthropology, Linguistics, Comparative Literature and Fine Arts to appoint members who specialize in African Studies.

b. The Committee should encourage Departments to persuade members with some interest in African materials to cultivate such interests, thereby increasing the number of teaching faculty members seriously concerned with Africa.

c. The Committee should avail itself of the opportunity provided by the Committee on General Education for expanding courses in African Studies.