The new director for the African-American Studies Program will have a bigger job than first thought.

The new director will be in charge of the Interdisciplinary Center for Global Diversity, said Michael Loudon, acting director for the African American Studies program.

The center will encompass African-American studies, Latin American studies, Asian studies and Women’s studies.

A committee assembled by Dean James Johnson from the College of Arts and Humanities proposed the idea for the center. The committee looked for ways to better support the African-American, Latin American, Asian American and Women’s studies programs.

“The hope is that as the center develops that autonomy remains, otherwise the danger is that it collapses into a kind of an intellectual ghetto,” Loudon said. “I don’t think I heard anyone express interest in a center that would collapse everything into Ethnic Studies.”

An ethnic studies program focuses on racial and ethnic minority communities and their roles in the United States programs. The African-American Studies Program at Eastern focuses on the heritage and culture of African-Americans in the United States and Africa.

Loudon hopes the center allows the programs to maintain their focus while working with the different departments across campus to make sure that classes within the different areas of study are offered.

“Such a center would provide liaisons with departments and encourage departments to hire faculty with expertise in these areas,” Loudon said. “The director would make sure that history would contribute to African-American history and Latin American history.”

Carlos Amaya, the chair of the Latin American Studies Program at Eastern, is hopeful that the new center will make the Latin American studies minor more visible by giving the program a home on campus.

“Right now we don’t have an office specifically designed for the program. The professor who becomes the chair of the committee uses his office to advise students about the program,” Amaya said. “The problem I see with the center is that the Latin American minor may not get enough attention from the director or whoever is in charge of the multi-cultural center unless the director is a representative from that area.”

Amaya hopes that the center will allow the program to invite speakers to campus.

“We offer the academic part of the program but we can’t go beyond because there is not any kind of monetary source to draw from to have activities that involve the community,” he said.

While Eastern is looking to create a center encompassing different programs on campus, some Illinois schools have opted to keep the disciplines separate.

Western Illinois University has a stand- alone, independent department of African-American Studies.

“We do not believe in subsuming an African-American studies department in any mega department,” said Abdul-Rasheed Na’Allah, department chair of African-American Studies. “I think what is slightly acceptable to many in this field is the College of Ethnic Studies model that then has separate departments in the different disciplines.”

Na’Allah believes it is up to the administration, faculty and students to decide where they want African-American studies to go. However, he believes an independent department of African-American studies would increase the strength of the program.

“My experience has shown me that a strong independent department of African-American studies attracts more serious scholarship and support greatly the academic vision of any liberal arts college, and draw students to its program,” he said.

The former director of the Eastern program, Onaiwu Ogbomo, believes there is support within the Eastern community for the program.

“While I was there Dean Johnson, my colleagues and the university supported the program very well,” Ogbomo said.

During his tenure as director, the African-American Studies Program worked with a variety of departments on campus to put on events.

“We organized a series of lectures, symposia and a major conference which brought national and international scholars to campus,” he said. “We also organized a major photographic exhibition of African-American’s in Coles County.”

The cross-departmental faculty in the African-American Studies department is one of the aspects that Eastern alum, Vincent Webb Jr., liked about the program. Webb graduated in 2007 with a degree in African-American studies.

“We need a variety of departments to help understand African-American studies. This world is not just filled with African-Americans,” Webb said. “Therefore, by having other departments our knowledge now comes full circle and how it directly correlates with African-American studies.”

Webb currently works at a high school in the St. Louis area and believes his degree in African-American studies helps him relate to students of all different races.

The Latin American Studies Program also has a cross-departmental faculty. The faculty is made up of professors from the foreign language department, history, geology, technology and Booth Library.

“We like working with each other and we know what the other professors are doing in terms of teaching, research, study abroad, etc. and we have a very good communication within the group,” Amaya said. “There is not any disadvantage of having faculty from such a variety of departments, on the contrary I think it’s great to be able to be in communication with people from other disciplines.”

Once chosen, the new director of the center will be in charge of making sure departments across campus continue to offer classes that fit with different programs curriculums.

A search committee for the new director will be formed this fall. The top three candidates will be interviewed in the spring semester, and a new director will be named sometime before July 1, 2008, Loudon said.

Loudon took over as acting director last year when Ogbomo left Eastern for Western Michigan University.

Loudon said Ogbomo left Eastern because of the appeal of running the Africana Studies Program, with its five tenure-track faculty members at Western Michigan.

Eastern’s African American Studies Program cannot hire tenure-track faculty because it does not have department status. A professor in African American studies, or any program at Eastern, can only be offered an annually contracted line.

However, the faculty member may take a tenure track position on any of the departments on campus. The faculty member is then promoted and judged by criteria from the department in which they have tenure.

“That makes it difficult to assume that a faculty member you hire on an annual contracted line will stay in that position and on that campus instead of accepting a tenure track position somewhere else,” Loudon said.

Loudon believes one of the issues the new director will need to address is the need for stable faculty in all the programs. In the past, the African-American Studies Program has had difficulty staffing upper division courses. Resulting in part time faculty being hired from off campus. The faculty member comes to campus once a week to teach a three-hour course.

“They aren’t on campus the rest of the time, it’s difficult for students to interact with them, there first commitment is to their home university rather than Eastern and Eastern students and it’s difficult for them to become involved in service activities,” Loudon said. “Regardless of the level of education, you’re looking at a kind of rotating adjunct faculty that doesn’t provide the necessary stability, direction and development for the program.”