Introduction

The Department of Pan-African Studies at Kent State University was established to serve a vital need in the University community. In the late 1960s, African American students demanded that the University curriculum significantly reflect their historical and contemporary experiences. For too long the contributions of Africans and people of African descent living throughout the world have been essentially ignored or inaccurately treated. The development of the Institute for African American Affairs in 1969, the Center of Pan-African Culture in 1972, and subsequently the Department of Pan-African Studies in 1976, all under the leadership of Dr. Edward W. Crosby, was the University's affirmative response to the demands of those students. Students are encouraged to major, minor, or double major in Pan-African Studies; create an area of concentration by selecting a coherent combination of PAS courses (see the description of the Bachelor of General Studies in the Undergraduate Catalog); or use their elective hours to take only those PAS courses that interested them.

Remember, Nommo ("the Word") is a powerful force in African tradition, but oftentimes when combinations of words are used to describe the creative, intellectual, and energetic work of people involved in the learning process, the collective rhetorical power of these words tends to weaken. In spite of this, the Department's faculty with some notable exceptions and staff and students and volunteers have developed the information contained in this Web Page and the other pages linked to it which highlight the Departments's  holistic Operational Imperatives, trusting that the words used in this capsulated description of the Department address the Department's educational raison d'etre, academic divisions, extra-classroom activities, and related student organizations. Over the past twenty-six years, students, faculty and staff have inspired and supported the Department in the continuing development of the Department's Africentric discipline buttressed by a holistic pedagogy structured on the philosophy and opinions of Chief Fela Sowande and many more significant others whose biographies are sprinkled thoughout this Web Page. The Department seeks to inform students of their need to address the development of themselves, their institutions, and their communities. The time they spend at Kent is preparatory to meeting this social responsibility. We take pride in being numbered among the most comprehensive African-centered educational efforts at Ohio's colleges and universities. We take even more pride, however, in having remained constant in our complete commitment to seeing that the lives and affairs of African American students, their parents and siblings, their teachers and supporters, and their cognitive and affective (sociocultural) needs remain central to the mission of all sectors of Kent State University.

It is important that we highlight this African American institution at this time because in short time Kent State will celebrate the centennial of its founding in 1910 as Kent Normal School. Without fear of being incorrect, we are certain that the University will not pay enough recognition to the blood, sweat and tears, and intellectual creativity that people of color, particularly African people, donated over the years to assisting in the development of this great University. HieroGraphics Online is acutely aware of how many of our colleagues living and dead contributed much more than they have been  recognized for. Among them are Oscar W. Ritchie, Milton E. Wilson, Paul E. Welcher, Lee A. Chatman, and Wiley Smith Ill (all of these persons are now deceased). Since 1968 it has been primarily Kent State's African American students who have stepped up to the plate and demonstrated to all Black faculty and staff and administrators what a little youthful push can accomplish. It's for these reasons and more that the Department is determined to honor those students and faculty who decided to act out the moral contained in the proverb "One man or woman who thinks and creates is worth more than a hundred men or women who think but create nothing."

The Department offers an undergraduate major leading to a Bachelor of Arts degree and a minor in the College of Arts and Sciences. The developing discipline of Africana Studies includes Pan-African Studies (or Diaspora Studies) as one of its primary emphases. The Department of Pan-African Studies, therefore, offers major and minor course sequences structured to provide in-depth study of history, language, philosophy, education, literature, sociology, art, music, and other subjects as they relate to people of African descent throughout the world. It also exposes the student to the theoretical, practical, and domestic and national issues facing African Americans and leads them to consider utilizing their intellectual skills to effect better organization and development of the African American community. Specifically, the Bachelor of Arts degree in Pan-African Studies recombines the humanities, the fine arts, the social sciences, research, and community development. Although Africana Studies legitimately includes the technical sciences, these subject matters have been strategically reserved for a later period in our development. The Department also offers minors in the Colleges of Education and Fine and Professional Arts. Pan-African Studies courses leading to a baccalaureate are also available at the Ashtabula, Salem, Stark, and Trumbull Regional Campuses of Kent State University.

Pan-African Studies seeks to understand the Pan-African experience. It attempts to explore the experiences of Africans and people of African descent located in Africa, Europe, the Caribbean, and North, South, and Central America, as well as Africans in Asia and the various islands located throughout the world's seas and oceans. These people have profoundly affected our world from the earliest times, and an understanding of them and their contributions is vital to an accurate understanding of the nature of the world we inhabit. Knowledge of the Pan-African experience, therefore, will lead to a greater understanding of the role of education in the future development of African and black peoples world wide.

Recently a well-designed Web Page was commissioned; however, it is not too original or informative as far as content is concerned. It describes the Department under the inept chairmanship of Dr. G. R. Garrison from 1995 to 1998. It can be accessed at: www.dept.kent.edu/pas/index.html

The Curriculum:

The Pan-African Studies curriculum includes courses which cover a broad spectrum of the Pan-African experience. The primary purpose of the curriculum is to provide students with basic information and questions which will lead to further research, study and analysis. The curriculum also seeks to investigate the African connection and/or influence among other ethnic groups, particularly Native Americans and Latinos, and the extent to which this influence may have been reciprocal. The curriculum, therefore, promotes a healthy appreciation, recognition, and understanding of the unity and diversity of the cultures and civilizations that comprise the human family. Essential to the Department's goals is the need to explore the fallacy of race as propounded in the fifteenth century and used to support the political and cultural primacy of Europeans at the expense of peoples of color. The Pan-African Studies curriculum is grounded in informing students of how their activism and social consciousness will affect their lives individually and African people collectively.

To support this curriculum, we have developed activities in African American communities and in public service agencies to keep students abreast of developments within the society, community and race. These activities were designed to help students put their talents to work assisting in the development of the African world community while they are in college and, it was hoped, after they have graduated. See the African American Affairs Practicum below.

Communication Skills and Arts (CSA)

A unique feature of the Pan-African Studies curriculum is Communication Skills and Arts. This Departmental division represent a joint effort on behalf of both the Department of Pan-African Studies and the English Department to teach College English — ENG 10000, 10001, and 10002 — in an innovative manner.

The College English courses offered under the direction of the Department were not remedial English courses. They are the same as the College English courses offered in the English Department, and they are taught by English Department faculty. The primary purpose of the program is to assist students in further developing their listening, speaking, reading, and writing skills. Additionally, the Communication Skills and Arts faculty seek to encourage the student to rediscover what she/he thinks, why she/he thinks that way, and how she/he can best convey thoughts both verbally and in writing. Effective communication is the main emphasis of the program. A classroom in which the environment is based on sharing is an important part of our approach to teaching English. We believe learning becomes freer and easier and more functional when approached in this way. All Department programs and services reasons and more that we are determined to honor those students and faculty who decided to act out the moral contained in the proverb "One man or woman who thinks and creates is worth more than a hundred men or women who think but create nothing."

The Department also provides communication skills reinforcement activities such as radio and TV programs, KITABU, Black Watch, UHURU Magazine, and Young Writers (the CSA student journal), etc. Instruction in Kiswahili I, II, III, and IV (the lingua franca throughout East and Central Africa), and the African Community Theatre (ACT) are also integral parts of the CSA curricular program. 

Facilities

The Department of Pan-African Studies and the Center of Pan-African Culture are located in Ritchie and Franklin Halls. The building was dedicated in November 1977 in honor of the late Dr. Oscar W. Ritchie, in response to a proposal made by The Black United Students in 1975. To effect the orderly effectuation of a meaningful relationship between this student organizations and the facilities of the Department and its components, the president of BUS, or his/her designate, is authorized to attend all faculty and staff and curriculum committee meetings, and special purpose meetings whose deliberations warrant student input. The Department strives unrelentingly to keep this fact alive in the minds of new generations of University administrators, African Americans generally, and other students, faculty, and staff. 

The Center's facilities expanded in 1981 when the African Community Theatre moved onto the first floor of Franklin Hall. In 1988, the Department received control of the third floor of Ritchie Hall. The increased student demand for the Department's academic programs expanded the need for additional classrooms and faculty and staff offices. On December 6 and 7, 1991, we dedicated the entire third floor to Queen Mother Audley Moore, a "Warrior Woman," born on July 27 1898, who devoted her life to active struggle on behalf of all people of African descent.

To keep constantly in the minds of our students and all others who visit the Center of Pan- African Culture our Africanity, we have developed a learning environment designed specifically to engage the subconscious mind that harbors our cultural memory. Images on the walls and in classrooms as well as using the names of African and African American heroes and heroines to designate classrooms and meeting places reinforce this motive. These personages are: Henry Dumas, Ella Baker, Fanny Lou Hamer, Sojourner Truth, Marcus Mosiah Garvey, Mwalimu Julius K. Nyerere, Kwame Nkrumah, W.E. Burghardt DuBois, Queen Mother Moore, Walter Rodney, Garrett A. Morgan, Unsung Women, Bishop Richard Allen, Sekou Touré, el-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz (Malcolm X), and James Van DerZee. 

The facilities the Center of Pan-African Culture controls in Ritchie Hall and in Franklin Hall are ample for a wide variety of academic and sociocultural programming purposes. These facilities include: 

The Department of Pan-African Studies sponsors the following programs and services, which were designed by Department faculty, students, and staff to aid us in meeting our educational objectives both on and off the main campus. There are a number of other programs the Department sponsors, e.g., HieroGraphics Online and others, such  as the African American Freshman Orientation Pilot Program, the Black Faculty and Staff Association (1970–1990), that are not described in this brochure. Information on these programs is available in Room 117, Center of Pan-African Culture, or can be obtained by sending an e-Mail to the Webmaster.

African American Affairs Practicum

Students enrolling in the African American Affairs practicum (internships or fieldwork), for instance, may receive up to 13 semester credits for their work in on-site research at various community agencies and conducting field work in a variety of domestic and international communities. Students work in these agencies twenty to forty hours per week during the summer months or during the regular academic year. DPAS faculty in conjunction with professional agency staff or select community residents supervise and evaluate the students'work performance and learning within the agency and the community. Through the practicum students were placed as legislative aid interns in the Ohio Legislature; performed with Black Arts West in Seattle, WA; worked as student assistants in Afro-American Studies Program at the University of Washington;  and  as recreation assistants at Tri-C Community College (Metro Campus), Cleveland, OH.

These internships help students decide where their skills can provide the most benefit to the most deserving within African, Caribbean, Canadian, and African American communities. Furthermore, these experiences help students identify their skills deficiencies and overcome them by enrolling in additional courses offered by Pan-African Studies or other Departments. Since the Department emphasizes the roles students should play before and after graduation in contributing to the social, political, educational, and cultural development of the community, the African American Affairs Practicum is an ideal method to demonstrate the practicality of this emphasis. Brochures outlining procedures for applying for an internship, the responsibilities of the agency agreeing to supervise and mentor interns, and other information concerning the world of work are available on request in the main office. 

African Languages

The Department offers at this time one African Language - Kiswahili, the most widely spoken language in East Africa. This language is also widely spoken in Central Africa. Kiswahili — PAS 10101 and 10102 — may be used to fulfill eight LER hours in the Mathematics, Logic, and Foreign Languages category. This language may also be used to fulfill the 14 hour foreign language requirement in the College of Arts and Sciences. The Critical Languages Program of the College of Arts and Sciences offers other African languages — Arabic and Yoruba. For those students who are unable to complete their Kiswahili studies in the Department, it is possible to do so through Critical Languages, a self-study program where students are assigned a tutor and examined by an outside evaluator or a Kiswahili instructor from the Department of Pan-African Studies.

The Department will offer in the near future Krio, the creole language spoken extensively along the west coast of Africa. Krio is similar to the creoles spoken in the West Indies. Students are encouraged to enroll in any of the five, and possibly six, African and European languages related to Africa currently taught on the Kent State Campus: Kiswahili, Yoruba, Krio, French, Portuguese, and Arabic.

Student Organizations

Of equal importance to the Department's mission, in addition to the Black United Students, is its work with other African American student organizations:

• The Progressive Education Community School
• The Black Graduate Students Association
• Mbárí Mbáyò Players
• UHURU Magazine 
• Ulezi
• Harambee!
• Alpha Kappa Mu National Honor Society
• Family Tree (KSU-TV Channel 2) and Ebony
• Waves (WKSU-AM)
• RAP (Re-Educating Africa's People)

Educational Support Services

Educational support services are designed to provide undergraduate and graduate students with the support systems necessary to enroll, progress through, and graduate from Kent State University. These services are designed primarily to address the needs of the students enrolled in PAS courses. Occasionally, these services are extended to students in other Departments.

One important service provided is counseling in the following areas: