President, provost to speak at Oct. 13 reception
President Mary Sue Coleman will speak about her trip to Africa earlier this year during a reception for the University’s new African Studies Center (ASC).
Provost Teresa Sullivan also will provide remarks at the event, scheduled for 3:30 p.m.-5:30 p.m. Oct. 13 on the second floor of the Michigan League.
The center, officially launched in July, is designed to provide additional support for teaching and research by organizing lectures, workshops, conferences and outreach events, in addition to serving as the focal point for the large number of faculty members and students engaged in African studies on campus and in Africa.
Other plans for the center include:
• An African Scholars Exchange program that will bring 10 visiting early career faculty members from Africa here each year for the next three years;
• A heritage studies initiative that explores how cultural assets (from museum artifacts to public monuments to performing arts and more) in Ghana and South Africa are historicized, authenticated, accessed and circulated. Plans include a conference on heritage studies in Ghana in summer 2009;
• An effort that seeks to strengthen social research in Africa. This interdisciplinary initiative, which is being developed in cooperation with the Institute of Social Research and with social scientists in South Africa and Ghana, includes a conference to be held in South Africa this spring; and
• To complete a search for a permanent director.
One of 17 centers for area and international studies at U-M under the umbrella of the International Institute, the ASC will serve as a resource for research and curriculum enrichment and a platform for cross-cultural exchange.
The center plans to take advantage of its affiliation with U-M’s 38-year-old Center for Afroamerican and African Studies (CAAS), which studies African societies and cultures and people of African descent in the United States and throughout the world.
Kelly Askew, associate professor of Afroamerican and African studies and anthropology, is serving as interim director of the new center. Many other CAAS faculty members also will work with ASC, as will faculty and researchers from academic units across the campus.
More than 140 faculty members working in a host of disciplines already work in Africa and the center helps bring their efforts together, Askew says.
“We’re making an effort to build collaborations that are trilateral involving two countries where U-M already has strong relationships, South Africa and Ghana,” Askew says.
For more information on the center or the reception call (734) 615-3027.
