The tremendous demand for Black Studies created a feverish, and sometimes vicious, competition for black faculty members. Because Harvard's program had begun looking for instructors late in the spring of 1969 there was some concern that it might not get top-quality personnel.
Dr. Ewart Guinier became chairman of the department. The distinguished-looking Guinier has a rich background in both academic and community-action experience. Forced to leave Harvard by the Depression, he finished his undergraduate work at CCNY, then gained a law degree from NYU. Long active in welfare organizations and community agencies in New York City, Guinier was the assistant director of Columbia University's Urban Center before coming to Harvard.
That Azinna Nwafor '62 should be the Head Tutor of the department is only fitting. The 28-year-old Ph.D. (in political science from the University of Michigan) was one of the founders of AAAAS. Nwafor's area of interest is the role of African states in international affairs.
The two other term appointees of the department exhibit impressive credentials, too. Dr. Ephraim Isaacs, Ph. D. '69, is a former director of the National Literacy Campaign in Ethiopia. Dr. Orlando Patterson is a distinguished scholar, novelist, and social critic, now teaching AAS 14 and AAS 30: African and West Indian Literature.
The Afro-American Studies Executive Committee supervises the operation of the entire department. Thus, student involvement is built into the department at every level: in budgetary details, operational procedures, and academic matters.
Such unprecedented student involvement did not result by chance: six students-three chosen by AAAAS, and three by and from concentrators-were voting members of the faculty committee which supervised the initial stages of the program's development.
As expected of any new-born academic entity, the fledgling department has encountered problems. "The major problem has been coordinating courses to establish coherence within the program," Guinier said. "Because the department is so young, tremendous gaps exist in theprogram in terms of what we should be offering."
Plans are proceeding so rapidly that he "gaps" in the program should be ?? ?? ?? ?? the next four years. At ?? ?? ?? courses are in the offing for next year. Future plans also include a graduate program, a departmental library, and a research institute.
III.
?? ?? ?? for Afro-American ?? ?? ?? a ?? ?? controversy and the program has received more than its share of unfavorable criticism since last September. Much of this criticism is rearguard action, and not worthy of reply. There is one charge levelled against ?? ?? Studies, however, that must be answered.
Soon after students began demand-?? Black Studies programs, ?? ?? ?? ?? that a degree in Afro-American Studies has no worth, that it could serve no "function" in society. These critics said that black students ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? American higher education in its entirety. That issue is the conflict between the traditional ideal of the university as an island of disinterested scholarship, a community of scholars devoted solely to the search for Truth, and the purpose of the modern American university, the brain trust of the government and incubator for the Establishment.
Whether the former ideal was ever realized by any American university is doubtful, but it would be foolish to say that the college experience does ?? afford the individual a means of finding and developing his true self. The pursuit of knowledge can be for a certain individual a search for the truth of human experience as it pertains to himself. The acquisition of knowledge, no matter how trivial or "??-functional" it may appear, influences in varied and often subtle ways the development of the human personality.
Technically speaking, then, concentrating in Afro-American Studies can have the same value for one individual as concentrating in Far Eastern Studies or in Government may have for another: it can provide the individual the mental tools to come to grips with himself and with society.
But Black Studies programs also have a "functional" role in contemporary society. W. E. B. DuBois said nearly seventy years ago that the problem of the twentieth century was the ?? of the color line. That state?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? of the American racial dilemma. That the old approaches are not resolving problems arising out of that matrix has long been evident.
Dynamic Black Studies programs, with sincere, realistic students and Faculty, should be the fountainhead of a new social thrust toward eradicating the effects of racism in America.
Obviously, Black Studies alone is not the panacea for black problems, but it can be part of the solution. At tempting to place Black Studies outside of this political perspective is evading the issue. The primary function of Black Studies programs should be to furnish an intelligentsia able to provide leadership at various cultural and political levels in the black community.
Harvard's Afro-American Studies program has not yet reached that level. But that many students in the department consider that its goal is clear. As one student said, "We're not in this for the sake of our pride, but for the sake of our people."