Back in November, I blogged on the crisis in the Department of African-American Studies (DAAS) at Temple University. I would like to update you on what happened.
In the summer of 2012, Teresa Soufas, the dean of the College of Liberal Arts, rejected the department’s nomination for chair, distinguished dance professor Kariamu Welsh, to replace retiring long-time chair, Nathaniel Norment. It was a bitter pill for the department to swallow. Then, allegedly, the dean denied the department’s request for a line to hire an outside chair (a denial the dean said never happened). To top it off, Soufas placed the department in receivership, and appointed as interim chair, Jayne Drake, a White vice dean with no background in African-American studies.
In effect, as the doctoral program celebrates its 25-year anniversary, the department sits in the dreaded receivership, with no autonomy.
I discussed this situation in my November blog, a blog instigated by the activism of DAAS graduate students, who publicized the crisis and demanded, among other things, a national search for a new chair for fall 2013. In the aftermath of the national firestorm of concern about this crisis in this nationally renowned African-American studies department, Soufas stood steadfast in her decision.
“One of my responsibilities is to pick the right person to chair the department,” she told Diverse in December. “Dean Drake brings enormous administrative skills to the job and is the right person at this time. I would do it again.”
Soufas qualified this statement by stressing her appointment is only temporary, and a search will soon begin to hire a senior scholar. She also told Inside Higher Ed that based on the university’s funding approval timeline, fall 2014 is the earliest the department could add a new senior professor.
I walked away from this controversy in late 2012, and I’m sure other concerned DAAS alumni and members of the Black Studies community walked away from the controversy, disturbed the department had to be governed directly by the dean’s office for a year or two.
