DETROIT (AP) – Protests by University of Missouri black students that forced the school’s administration to address racism and other problems mirror efforts decades ago that led many majority white schools to create African-American studies and other programs.
But those programs and some ethnic studies departments across the country are struggling with funding, low-staffing and dwindling student enrollment, according to some experts.
African and African-American Studies at the City University of New York’s Lehman College in the Bronx once had 10 full-time faculty members, but now has only five full-timers and one substitute assistant professor whose term will expire next June, Chair and professor Mark Christian told The Associated Press.
“We rely heavily on adjuncts to teach classes, and even this budget is under constant threat,” Christian said. “I imagine most departments in Africana/black studies around the nation have similar problems with a lack of investment from the administrations.”
Officials at San Jose State University in California cited the struggle by its African American Studies Department to attract enough students to fill upper division classes and having only one full-time faculty member in a proposal to merge the program into another department.