DEPARTMENT HISTORY

Our Beginnings

    In early spring, 1968, Willard Rogers, then president of CSUF’s small Black Student Union appeared before the president’s cabinet and the faculty council to appeal for funding of a program that would bring financially disadvantaged students to the campus. Rogers was concerned that of a student body of 9,000, CSUF had only fifteen black students.

  The cabinet and faculty council, aware of the discrepancy, were interested in implementing corrective measures. A joint committee of students, faculty, and administrators arranged a hierarchy of priorities to act upon, which included the recruitment of students, funding, selection of a director, and establishment of academic processes to handle student needs.

  A steering committee was elected to select a director. After a purposeful interviewing process the committee chose James C. Fleming from San Francisco State to begin his directorship on July 1, 1968. Through a series of interviews and recommendations 50 students had been selected from over 100 applicants. Assuming control of the program, Fleming began to initiate the necessary steps to ready comprehensive counseling, tutoring, and financial aid for the incoming students of the newly named program, New Educational Horizons (NEH).

  Regardless of the success a program enjoys, there always seems to be room for improvement and NEH was no exception. Its dedication to the precept of “anticipate the needs of the students, and then develop the resources necessary to meet those needs” led to the establishment of the department of Ethnic Studies. The basic thought and motivation for this department emanated from the students in the NEH program. During the spring 1969 semester, students began to complain about some of the classes and instructional procedures being “irrelevant” and/or “insignificant.” In essence, what these students were asking for were courses that related to them directly. They wanted classes dealing with the Chicano and Black experience in society. The original Ethnic Studies proposal advocated a “fundamental process of change” that would be of importance for all students at CSUF.

  The concept of an Ethnic Studies department was accepted by CSUF and the state college system by fall 1969 to provide a curriculum rendering the educational process more relevant and significant with historical substancestrong to a culturally diverse student population.

  Subsequently, in the late 1980s, the African American Studies department was established providing an interdisciplinary framework for examining the experiences of people of African heritage. The curriculum engages students in the critical examination of black diasporic cultural traditions and race relations in North America, Africa, and the Caribbean Basin. African American studies regard black people and their cultures as essential, organic components of the societies in which they live. The major and minor in African American studies draw on fields such as history, sociology, economics, anthropology, literature, music, drama, dance, film, and the visual arts.