The Department of Africology and African American studies here at Eastern Michigan University offers several academic programs and General Education courses that are designed to help enrich your learning experience in a way that could better prepare and equip you with knowledge and skills for effective functioning in a world of diverse peoples and cultures.
We offer a bachelor’s degree program in African American studies, which is open to all students, regardless of your country of origin, racial, ethnic or gender classification. Indeed, our students—that is, students who traffic through our myriad of courses each semester—represent a diverse group of learners who come here to join us in our often exciting critical and systematic exploration of the black experience in its domestic and global contexts. So, besides our 33-credit major in African American studies, we also offer a 21-credit minor in African American studies, a 12-credit undergraduate certificate in African Studies and a 15-credit graduate certificate in African American studies. We also encourage students to double-major in African American studies and any other discipline of their choice that can fit into the 124 minimum number of credits that you need in order to earn a bachelor’s degree at Eastern Michigan University.
Every semester, we provide a mix of course sections that pertain to not only multidimensional aspects of black life and culture in the United States but also to the Caribbean and Africa. Thus, Africology is designed to provide you with a holistic understanding of the global black experience even though we accord a historically-necessary premium attention to the African American experience in the New World, particularly the United States.
In our increasingly-globalized social and digital space, you stand to benefit from and be intellectually strengthened by a course of study which, among other learning outcomes, is designed to help you achieve a deep or deeper understanding of human equality in the context of human differences and commonalities as members of the same human species.
If you have not had a taste of what we offer, you are really not opening yourself up to a rich opportunity that exists here at EMU for you to acquire a critical understanding of race, its intersection with ethnicity and gender, and how race, in particular, influenced the social evolution of our heterogeneous society.
Avail yourself of an opportunity to acquire a critical knowledge of and perspective on how our society evolved from what was once a slave-owning state to what it is now: a country led by a president elected from a minority community of contemporary African Americans, most of whom are descendants of ancestors who were subjected to two hundred and forty-six years of African enslavement in the United States (1619-1865).
Avail yourself of an opportunity to critically learn about how the aforementioned transformation consequentially gave a concrete meaning to our ideal of freedom and how it also expanded our democratic space and strengthened our system of representative governance. And, avail yourself of an opportunity to critically learn about how a stratagem of non-violent direct action serves as a tool for positive social change.
So, to summarize, here at EMU, we have available for you a variety of learning options by which you can experience Africology and African American Studies:
- You have the ability to major in African American studies.
- You have a choice of double majoring in African American studies and another discipline.
- You have the choice of minoring in African American.
- You have a choice of using our African American studies courses to satisfy some areas of EMU’s general education program, such as AFC 101 Introduction to African American Studies, US Diversity; AFC 102 Introduction to African Civilization, Global Awareness; AFC 232 Politics in the African American Experience, US Diversity; AFC 313 Contemporary Africa: the Struggle & Prospects for Development, Global Awareness; AFC 302W Writing for African American Studies, Intensive Writing; and AFC 351 the Social Context of African American Health, Knowledge of the Disciplines, Social Science.
- You have the choice of completing a 12-credit certificate in African studies.
- You have a choice of completing a 15-credit graduate certificate in African American studies.
- You have a choice of using available African American studies course sections to complete the “free electives” for your bachelor’s degree.
- We are also in the process of finalizing a proposal for a master’s degree in Africology and African American studies.
Take note that though we are known as Africology and African American studies here at EMU, our field of study goes by a variety of names across US universities, such as Africology, black studies, African world studies, global African studies, Pan-African studies, black American studies and Africana studies.
In closing, please visit our website and Facebook page to learn more about our department, its academic programs and a colorful list of our students’ dynamic community engagement activities: http://www.emich.edu/aas/programs.php
On our website, you will also find a link that opens up information on various types of careers that were established by individuals who graduated with degrees in African American Studies: http://www.emich.edu/aas/blackstudiesmajor2015.pdf
