The decision this week by prominent academic Cornel R. West '74 to leave Princeton and join Harvard's Afro-American Studies Department caps off the remarkable transformation of a program that not long ago was on the verge of collapse.

The world-renowned scholar of religion, philosopy and Afro-American studies is widely credited with building Princeton's Afro-American studies program into one of the best in the nation.

And he brings a reputation for political and social activism to Harvard's department, which has been criticized by students and Afro-American studies scholars as politically inert.

"What West will do is bring a degree of validity in terms of connections between the African community and the University, that neither Gates nor Appiah have done," said Molefi Kete Asante, who chairs the Temple University Department of African American studies.

"He's more organically connected to African groups," said Asante, who has criticized the Harvard department in the past. "Gates has almost no connection with the Black community."

Students in Afro-American Studies at Harvard have also called for a more politically and socially relevant approach to the department's curriculum.

Harvard's department has been guided by a "cultural studies" orientation which seeks to explore the role of race and ethnicity in determining the characteristics of a group or society. Professors in the department have also avoided an explicitly political role on divisive campus issues.

West's intellectual interests--he has written widely on contemporary sociological and political issues--and activist bent will answer those student concerns, Afro-American studies professors say.

"He's the first to bring that very clear activist orientation," said Assistant Professor of English and Afro-American Studies Phillip Brian Harper. "At the same time, he will...help to demonstrate to students exactly how intellectual work can itself be activist."

As much as West will give to Harvard's program, scholars not his move will also injure the program the prominent scholar helped build at Princeton.

Rhett Jones, professor of history and Afro-American studies at Brown, said that because there are not that many professors of Afro-American studies in the pipeline of academia, all the universities end up shuffling the same top people around.

"Harvard gains and Princeton loses," said Jones.

Beyond the cloistered intellectual community, however, West's name will improve the profile of Harvard's department in the public mind, he said.

"His [West's] work has an impact not only in the academic community but in the public intellectual community," said Jones.

West is a best-selling author as well as a frequent columnist and commentator.