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Darla Hobbs, a graduate student in Syracuse University’s Pan African Studies program who minored in African American Studies as an undergraduate, said the AAS department’s lack of resources makes her feel like she has to focus on more than just getting her degree.

“We carry — and I believe that my cohort could probably agree when I say this — we carry the weight of keeping our department alive on our shoulders,” she said. “Just because of what every single student that came before us went through to give us this opportunity. So in order to keep the legacy of this department alive, it’s a very heavy weight to carry.”

The AAS department operated the entire spring 2024 semester with no chair. Alumni, students and faculty formed an affinity group in April advocating for AAS, prompting university administration to appoint an interim chair, professor James Haywood Rolling Jr., in May.

Members of the department are still working to get adequate resources. The department does not have a librarian for its Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library, and students and faculty said it doesn’t have enough professors to fulfill its curriculum. After the spring 2024 semester, AAS lost another professor with the retirement of S.N. Sangmpam, who had been with the department for nearly 35 years and taught two core curriculum courses.

Jelani Dowe, a senior studying political science on the pre-law track at SU, decided to minor in AAS and is now considering joining the department’s Pan African Studies graduate program. He said it hurts to know he may lose the opportunity to participate in the master’s program because of its lack of attention and resources.

Dowe said the department is a tight-knit community, but has noticed its dwindling staff.
Sangmpam had agreed to be Dowe’s advisor and guide him in writing his honors thesis, but “abruptly” retired last spring, he said.

“There’s often a lot of talk about DEIA initiatives and diversity being key on this campus, yet a department such as AAS is understaffed and forced to deal with administrative changes abruptly,” Dowe said.

Rolling, the department’s recently appointed interim chair, acknowledged the decision behind his appointment as interim chair was made hastily, but said he was convinced he could help the department because it was a “full-circle moment” for him.

“I owe my career to the AAS department at SU, and I want to help the department flourish in the years to come,” Rolling wrote in a statement to The Daily Orange. “Although the department had gone too long without a chair and a swift resolution was being demanded, the haste that was required at that point made it crucial for me to start out with some careful relationship-building.”

Horace Campbell, a professor of political science and AAS, said he wonders whether SU is following the lead of universities in the South and participating in what he called the “anti-woke movement.” Republican politicians have said in recent years that curriculum critical of U.S. racial history “significantly lacks educational value.”

“Trump and the MAGA don’t want African American Studies,” he said.

A university spokesperson wrote in a Wednesday statement to The D.O. that SU is committed to being a welcoming university that values all life experiences, encourages diverse viewpoints and celebrates uniqueness.

“Syracuse University’s commitment to these foundational values will never waver,” the spokesperson wrote.

Rolling, who is an alumnus of the AAS department, said AAS departments nationwide were “typically born out of contention,” as faculty and administrators have advocated to meet the needs of historically marginalized students, he wrote.

“Present-day politics reminds us that we must continue to approach our growth and expansion with a ‘we’re all in this together’ mindset,” he wrote.

Uchenna Ezejiofor, a graduate student in the Pan African Studies program, said she’s worried for the department’s fate considering the United States’ current political climate. She said she’s afraid that when Campbell, who is 79, retires, it’ll be “curtains closed” for the department.

“I think that’s what America wants at this point,” Ezejiofor said. “When you’re learning, education is power. So when you learn all this stuff, and you get a degree in it and you’re able to apply it and work in society and contribute your knowledge in any way, you’re going to want to make change.”

Donald Trump does not support programs like AAS — the president-elect’s Agenda47 includes plans to defund programs such as AAS and women’s studies, as well as punish schools that persist in “explicit, unlawful discrimination under the guise of equity.”

“They don’t want change. They don’t want that. They don’t want people ruffling feathers. They don’t want Black people in spaces of power and leadership.” Ezejiofor said, referring to Trump’s incoming administration.

The university spokesperson wrote that SU has been “very clear” about its position on the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2023 ruling that ended race-conscious college admissions.

“(SU) has reaffirmed its commitment to recruiting and enrolling talented and promising students from all backgrounds, experiences and geographies, and from across the socioeconomic spectrum,” the spokesperson wrote.

In January 2023, Florida Gov. Ron Desantis denounced Advanced Placement African American Studies courses, taught in high schools across the country, calling them “indoctrination.”

Florida, Arkansas and South Carolina have all moved to restrict AP AAS classes, with South Carolina’s Department of Education deciding to eliminate the class in June 2024. A month later, Georgia refused to allocate state funding to teaching AP AAS.

Ezejiofor said the country is entering an era of “supreme white supremacy,” with leaders who want to “silence” the narratives of Black people, Indigenous Americans and other marginalized groups.

“Systemic racism shapes the trajectory of our entire lives — academically, personally, our health, our mental health, our overall well-being, is shaped by the systemic inequalities and injustice that were imposed on us in this country,” Hobbs said.

The SU spokesperson wrote that as of March 2024, there were 12 undergraduate AAS majors, eight undergrad AAS minors and 14 graduate students pursuing Pan African Studies master’s degrees at SU.

This semester, Ezejiofor said the department has seven graduate students, all of whom are participating in the program on financial fellowships or teaching assistantships.

Dowe said Campbell supports his interest in SU’s Pan African Studies graduate program, but has urged him to look at other schools because the experience at SU is “not promised.”

“A lot of my peers are wondering if we will even be back, because we’re deprived of the resources. We don’t have enough professors,” Hobbs said. “We are fighting against something way bigger than us, with Project 2025, we don’t know what our future holds for us as the AAS department.”

Hobbs said there also aren’t enough computers in the first-year graduate students’ office, and she and Dowe said the department’s classrooms in Sims Hall have experienced prolonged heating issues. The SU spokesperson said heating issues happen in campus facilities during winter months and that they are addressed when reported.

As a grad student new to the program, Ezejiofor said she wasn’t particularly surprised to hear about the department’s struggles.

“There’s a part of me that was even kind of expecting that, given that African American Studies departments across the country are institutionally underfunded,” she said. “There is an intention around the erasure of the experiences of marginalized people in this context of Black people, and it’s now manifesting as the attack on Syracuse University’s Department of African American Studies.”

Campbell has been at the university for over 30 years and has continued his research and publishing throughout his tenure. She thinks it’s important to recognize that Campbell, who is currently writing another book, has done such a large amount of scholarship but doesn’t yet hold a distinguished professor title.

Ezejiofor said her professor’s lack of distinguished recognition by the university is “directly” correlated with the work and research he publishes, which centers around anti-oppression and Black liberation.

She also noted the small number of professors in the department.

The university spokesperson said there are eight full-time (not counting Rolling, the current interim chair), two part-time and eight affiliated faculty members in AAS.

Vlad Dima, who holds a doctorate degree in French studies and served as the department’s interim chair for one semester, was hired as a full professor three years ago, the spokesperson wrote. Two years ago, Jennifer O’Reilly was hired into a tenure-track assistant professor position. Both professors currently teach in the department.

The spokesperson wrote that the university does not make faculty hiring decisions. They previously said Dima was hired “with the support and endorsement of Syracuse’s AAS faculty.”

Over the last 10 years, the department has hired eight full faculty members, the spokesperson wrote, adding that these investments are “consistent with other departments on campus.” They also noted that in the past 10 years, four faculty members have left the department for “non-retirement related reasons.”

“The leaders of the schools and colleges, in consultation with department chairs and faculty, determine where and when to hire,” the spokesperson wrote. “As is the case with any faculty retirement or departure, the school/college leadership assesses courseload, enrollment and other metrics to determine when and if a new hire is necessary and appropriate.”

Ezejiofor said typically when professors leave, the university hires an adjunct replacement. Many elective courses taught for undergraduate students in AAS are taught primarily by adjuncts, Ezejiofor said.

“But adjuncts don’t get paid well. They’re actually very, very exploited in the academic system — they’re not paid well, they don’t have the same benefits as a full professor, they don’t get to contribute to the literature in the same way,” she said.

Gretchen Ritter, SU’s Vice President for Civic Engagement and Education, who was the university’s provost at the time, told the University Senate in April that AAS is “central” to the university. She said SU “takes pride” in the AAS department, its research and curricular offerings.

Campbell said that while the university “will tell you whatever they want to tell you,” there are not enough professors in the AAS department.

“The amount of bodies here — to meet students, to mentor students, to teach students — are not there,” Campbell said. “That’s just the reality.”

The university states that it is committed to diversity and inclusion — something Trump is set to target, Reuters reported Tuesday. The university’s commitment “is rooted in the belief that multiple points of view, life experiences, ethnicities, cultures and belief systems are essential to academic excellence,” as stated on its website.

Joan Bryant, an associate professor of AAS, currently oversees the operations of the department’s Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Library. Multiple students previously told The D.O. that Bryant was working double time as both a professor and librarian. Graduate students still run the library under her guidance, Hobbs said.

“She has to worry about just keeping the library alive when she was not hired as a librarian — she was hired as a professor,” she said. “Why is our department not worthy of an actual librarian? Why do we have to spread our faculty thin, forcing them into a discipline that ultimately is not what they’re here to do?”

The university spokesperson said SU’s College of Arts and Sciences supports replacing the librarian position, but said there was disagreement among AAS faculty regarding the role’s requirements and expectations.

“The College would like to hire a librarian, whereas, some of the faculty want this position to be a tenure-track professor position who also serves as the librarian,” the spokesperson wrote.

Rolling said the department is “moving cautiously” to fully assess the needs of students while also working to preserve the library’s “unique history and autonomy.”

SU’s Bird Library and Carnegie Library each have multiple librarians. The university’s King + King Architecture Library has one librarian.

Dobbs also said it’s not the responsibility of students and faculty in the AAS department to keep the department running. They worry whether anyone will come after them and focus on the department’s fate, she said.

The university documented in 2023 that 7.5% of its undergrad students and 8% of its grad students are Black or African American.

“(The university) should do more to give to the department which aims to enlighten students about the history of Black people, of African American people,” Dowe said.

Hobbs feels like the university is “doing nothing” about the AAS department.

“I don’t know if you’ve ever heard the saying that silence is complacency,” she said. “You are as responsible when you say nothing, as if you were saying something against it.”

AAS faculty sent a list of issues in a 2020 letter to university administration. The list was updated in 2024.

• Department chair process must involve the department
• Supporting curriculum
• Replacement of faculty
• Create a pathway to pay increases for tenure and promotion for professors who have “extraordinary service loads”
• Address structural racism, lack of transparency and the campus climate at SU
• University to enroll “considerably more Black and brown students”
• University to hire a departmental librarian and 12 part-time instructors for the 2024-25 academic year due to several faculty going on leave
• Three additional teaching assistants and a resident advisor to be assigned to the department
• University to establish an endowed postdoctoral faculty fellowship and for the university to “revive and authorize” the search for visiting professorships — which was supposed to start in spring 2020
• University to create two endowed professor positions in AAS

Campbell said the university has not met any of the department’s listed requirements.

Rolling said while he has his own ideas for the AAS department, his goal is to help the university and department arrive at a “new vision collectively.”

“Talking one on one with our faculty members has affirmed to me that excellent ideas about strengthening our curriculum, our faculty presence, and the numbers of our majors and minors are already in house,” he said.

Rolling said the most important achievement the department has made this semester was deciding to move forward with a developmental external review of the AAS department — since the department’s last external review was in 2003. Rolling is also developing a departmental mentoring plan to support AAS’s junior faculty members.

The AAS department was created by student protest and strengthened by student protest, Hobbs said. Black students had to fight for the department and library to exist, “just like we did historically in this country,” she said.

“By no means are we victims. We fight every day to keep our department alive. But at what point does it become exhausting and no longer our responsibility to uphold rather than the people who have the actual first and final say?” Hobbs said.

Despite AAS’s ongoing struggles, Hobbs, Dowe and Ezejiofor highlighted the joy within the department. Hobbs said AAS has had a very successful semester, hosting multiple events that brought together academics from across the African diaspora.

Hobbs said that as an undergrad, she spoke out in support of the #NotAgainSU movement.

“Now, as a graduate student, I have to speak up for my department. We’re at a point where we may not have a department anymore,” Hobbs said. “We’re doing the best that we can, and merely existing and pushing through adversity is what we do every day. We get up, we show up. We are at the forefront. We are using our voices. We will never be silent.”

Published on December 12, 2024 at 1:17 am

Contact Ahna: arflemin@syr.edu