Center gets $50,000 for African program

Center gets $50,000 for African program

The University of Michigan will take Afroamerican studies to Africa in a program funded by the United States International Communication Agency (USICA).

The, U-M Center for Afroamerican and African Studies has been awarded $50,000 by USICA to fund 9 three-year academic exchange with the National University of Benin (NUB) in the People’s Republic of Benin, Africa.

The exchange program will involve three areas, according to CAAS:

• Faculty exchange for training, research, and graduate education in the social and economic sciences related to NUB and Benin national development.

• Course and staff development for the preparation and translation of a syllabus and lectures for the course ‘Introduction to American and Afroamerican Studies’.

• A research project on the comparative and interdisciplinary study of the dispersion of Yoruba people and culture in Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean and the United States.

U-M anthropologist Niara Sudarkasa, CAAS director, laid the groundwork for the partnership during talks beginning in 1979 with Prof. O.J. Igue, former dean of social science at NUB. Sudarkasa is a Senior Fulbright Research Scholar in Benin through next January.

Other U-M units participating in the program are the Rackham School of Graduate Studies and the Center for Research on Economic Development (CRED).

The program will culminate in strategies and a funding proposal to continue the research already under way and to develop new programs of cooperation.

The scholarly exchanges with NUB formally will begin with the arrival of Rector (university president) Jean Pliya at CAAS in December. Beginning in January and continuing through 1985, three NUB economists, as well as an historian and Prof. Igue, will teach and do research at intervals here under the shared auspices of CAAS and CRED.

CAAS will name at least two Michigan faculty to visit NUB under this grant. Program developers expect additional exchanges to evolve through the generation of new research and training projects.