Afro-Am Plans New Offerings

The Afro-American Studies Department will institute a graduate program in fall of 1993, Head Tutor K. Anthony Appiah told potential concentrators at a meeting yesterday.

The department's graduate students would serve as teaching fellows for Afro-Am courses, Appiah said. The master's program, he said, "will add to the intellectual life" of the Afro-Am department.

In addition, Appiah told the group of seven first-years, the department may offer a survey course open to all undergraduates next year.

Afro-Am 10, the survey course, would focus on thematic issues in Afro-American history and culture, Appiah said.

In a meeting tomorrow, Afro-Am faculty members will discuss proposed curriculum changes, which could include restructuring the department's tutorial system. Appiah said last week that modifications in the tutorial program would provide more flexibility for students who transfer into the concentration.

In an interview last weekend, DuBois Professor of the Humanities Henry Louis Gates Jr. said the tutorial system changes, which Appiah is overseeing, will make the department more accessible for students.

"He attempts to tailor a program to meet the needs of the students," said Gates, the department's chair.

Gates said that the department has already seen an increase in concentrators and that he expects future growth in the program. Currently, Afro-Am has 45 concentrators, 17 of whom are sophomores.

This year, Gates taught 21 students in the concentration's introductory tutorial, which has often had fewer than ten students in the past.

"We're very pleased with those numbers," Gates said.

At yesterday's meeting, Appiah said the department is still seeking new visiting and permanent faculty members, and may bring a Nobel laureate in literature in to teach Afro-Am courses.

Gates said he may teach a course on race in American society with Winthrop Professor of History Stephan A. Thernstrom.

In the course, Gates said, the two professors would share their differing views on race in American society but without attempting to persuade one another. "It could be a model for in- terdisciplinary teaching," Gates said.

"I would have loved to have taken a course likethat when I was an undergraduate," Gates said.

Alessandro De Alarcon '95, who attended theconcentration meeting, said he is consideringAfro-Am because "a lot of questions I have in mylife have to do with race questions."

He said Afro-Am would allow him to "try tolearn more about a culture that I don't know muchabout."

De Alarcon said Harvard's Afro-Am departmentgives students the opportunity to work withleading scholars who have recently joined thefaculty.

"You get to be with some of the best professorsin the nation in the field ," he said

"I would have loved to have taken a course likethat when I was an undergraduate," Gates said.

Alessandro De Alarcon '95, who attended theconcentration meeting, said he is consideringAfro-Am because "a lot of questions I have in mylife have to do with race questions."

He said Afro-Am would allow him to "try tolearn more about a culture that I don't know muchabout."

De Alarcon said Harvard's Afro-Am departmentgives students the opportunity to work withleading scholars who have recently joined thefaculty.

"You get to be with some of the best professorsin the nation in the field ," he said