Established in 1970, the African American Studies Program offers an interdepartmental and interdisciplinary approach to the study of ethnicity, identity, human relations, and cultural dynamics. Students gain the opportunity to understand American society and the international arena from the unique vantage point of the African diaspora, especially Americans of African descent.
The program began as the Black Studies Program with a handful of courses in 1969, fueled by the student protests, the campus organizing movement, and the Black Studies movement. The first two movements fought for civil rights on college campuses, while the Black Studies movement aimed to bring education about the African American and Black communities to campuses.
FSU had desegregated less than ten years earlier when it admitted its first African American student, Maxwell Courtney, in 1962. However, even after schools had been desegregated, students around the country and on FSU’s campus continued to protest unfair treatment toward Black students.
Students believed the program would help expose students to the history and culture of Black and African American individuals, which in turn would help fight against racial injustice.
In January of 1977, Reverand William Jones, Ph.D., now a professor emeritus, was appointed to lead the program. The first course to carry an official African American Studies identifier was offered less than a year later at the beginning of the 1977-1978 academic year.
Following Dr. Jones’ tenure as director, several individuals have helped grow the program.
Today, the program is led by Katrinell Davis, Ph.D., a professor of sociology and faculty member with the Center for Demography and Population Health (CDPH) who joined the program in 2018.
As of the 2023-2024 academic year, the program’s 83 graduates have found careers in education, consulting, research, public administration, and law at organizations like the University of Denver, Sidley Austin LLP, and the Office of Criminal Conflict and Civil Regional Counsel.
Undergraduate Major and Minor
The African American Studies program offers undergraduate students both a major and minor. At least 36 credit hours of coursework are required within the major. Students must select one of three specialty areas: social sciences, literature and arts, or history, religion, and philosophy. In each case, the student selects 15 credit hours from African American Studies core courses, six hours of African and/or African American history courses, plus 15 credit hours of elective courses from a chosen specialty area and related supplemental courses.
The undergraduate minor requires the completion of 18 credit hours, which must include the core courses of AFA 2000, AFA 3101, and either AFA 3330 or AFA 4240. In addition, the minor must include 3 credit hours of African or African American history courses, and 6 credit hours of supplementary courses.
The major and minor enable students to enhance their understanding of African Americans’ unique social circumstances and heritage and to acquire a deeper comprehension of the history and culture of the nation. Additionally, they enhance a student’s ability to engage in critical reasoning and analytical thought while gaining written and oral communication skills.
Majoring or minoring in African American studies provides an excellent preparation for careers in law, politics, public policy, teaching, or business, as well as for graduate or professional school.
Other Programming
In addition to offering undergraduate programming, the African American Studies program plays an active role in campus programming and community building.
In 1977, the program launched The Black Voice, a periodical that aimed to disseminate information about course materials, current events, stories about students and professors, and student-written poetry. It was intended to bring together students and teachers from FSU, Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University (FAMU), and the surrounding areas.
The African American Studies program has also worked towards the goal of increasing retention of marginalized and minority graduate students. In 1989, the program started the Black Graduate Student Orientation (formerly the Minority Summer Orientation Program) which ended around 2009 after serving over three hundred graduate students throughout this period.
The Black Graduate Student Orientation Program required a two-week commitment and aimed to foster a relationship between the student and the institution, and a sense of personal affiliation within the university community. It also worked to teach resilience strategies and introduce students to affinity groups while providing hands-on knowledge about the institution’s resources and operations.
The Black graduate orientation workshops were established with the belief that if students knew how to meet their basic needs—both institutionally and personally—while also attending to the special requirements of graduate school, their retention and academic performance would be markedly improved. To this end, there were workshops on being an effective student, how to survive graduate school, and how to find funding. Graduate student participants were also taught how to write and finish their dissertation thesis and were paired with mentors that they interacted with often during the program.
Research
Faculty and students associated with the African American Studies program are engaged in scholarly research regarding ethnicity, identity, human relations, and cultural dynamics, and more. Faculty members have produced significant research regarding African American history, and the impact various policies, traditions, and cultural phenomenon’s have had on the African American community.
Recent research includes a study on how Black and African American individuals can be discriminated against or marginalized during hiring and while on the job market. Another recent research project studies how society can recover and restore African cultural consciousness.
Other major research themes include the African diaspora, sociology as it relates to the African American community, and policies pertaining to and affecting the African American community.
The program also has several faculty members and affiliates who work with other programs and centers in the college to support interdisciplinary research.
Several faculty members are affiliated with the Center for Demography and Population Health (CDPH). Established in 1967, the center supports evidence-based public policy through interdisciplinary research on demographic processes and population health, trains master’s students seeking careers as applied demographers, and mentors doctoral students in social demography, population economics, social epidemiology, and environment and health. CDPH brings together researchers from the departments of sociology, economics, geography, urban and regional planning, history, statistics, and the College of Medicine.
Faculty Members
The African American Studies program benefits from the research and instruction of our dedicated faculty members. The program features several core faculty members, teaching faculty members, and faculty affiliates.
Alisa Gaines, Ph.D., is the Timothy Gannon associate professor of English and a faculty affiliate. Dr. Gaines’ work includes “Black for a Day: Fantasies of Race and Empathy,” a manuscript that creates a genealogy of examining white individuals who temporarily “become” black under the claim of racial empathy.
Cameron Beaty, Ph.D., is an associate professor in the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies and a faculty affiliate. In 2023, Dr. Beaty co-edited “Engaging Black Men in College Through Leadership Learning,” encouraging educators to understand the importance of black male leadership on college campuses.
Carolina Velasquez-Calderon, Ph.D., is an assistant professor of geography and a faculty affiliate. In 2023, Dr. Velasquez-Calderon was the lead author for an article about desalination and reproduction of water injustices in the San Andres Island water crisis.
Christopher Coutts, Ph.D., is a professor of urban and regional planning, a Public Health Program faculty affiliate, and an African American Studies faculty affiliate. In 2019, Dr. Coutts worked in Malawi as a U.S. Fulbright Scholar teaching at Mzuzu University and performing research on the critical role of nature conservation on healthy sustainable development in the remote Misuku Hills. His work has appeared in outlets such as The New York Times, U.S. News and World Report, Forbes, and The Atlantic.
DeReef Jamison, Ph.D., is an assistant teaching professor who came to FSU in 2023. Dr. Jamison previously taught at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and has published research on Africana psychology and African cultural consciousness.
Katherine Mooney, Ph.D., is the James P. Jones Associate Professor of History and a faculty affiliate with the program. Dr. Mooney has researched topics concerning the history of slavery and its legacies. Her book, Race Horse Men, examines the generations of black men who worked with Thoroughbred horses from the colonial period to the 1920s.
Katrinell Davis, Ph.D., the current director of the program, is a professor of sociology and a faculty associate with the CDPH. In 2021, Dr. Davis authored “Tainted Tap” which analyzes the conditions and constraints that led to the Flint water crisis. Dr. Davis has also researched issues such as urban inequalities, the sociology of poverty, and the social determinants of health.
Kwasi Densu, Ph.D., is an assistant teaching professor with extensive research in topics related to ecology, farming, food and agricultural sciences. In 2022, Dr. Densu assisted in establishing the Lola Hampton-Frank Pinder Center for Agroecology at Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University (FAMU). The center works to address the dwindling number of Black farmers.
Maria Ryan, Ph.D., is an assistant professor of musicology and a program faculty affiliate. Dr. Ryan’s in-process book project, Ambivalent Listening: Race, Music, and Slavery in the British Colonial Caribbean 1750–1838, investigates the relationship between race and music in the British colonial Caribbean, exploring the many ways that African-descended musicians and listeners engaged with music with European origins.
Rhea E. Lathan, Ph.D., is an associate professor of English and a faculty affiliate. Dr. Lathan’s book, Freedom Writing: African American Civil Rights Literacy Activism, argues through cultural theory and literacy studies that African Americans have literacy traditions that represent specific, culturally influenced ways of being in the world.
Sierra Turner, Ph.D., is a program director with the Department of Student Engagement and works as a teaching professor for both the African American Studies program and the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies at FSU. In her role, Dr. Turner has worked to initiate university-wide dialogue and education in cultural competence and inclusion programming.
Shantel Buggs, Ph.D., is an assistant professor of sociology, who came to FSU after earning her Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Texas at Austin in 2017. Her research interests center on culture, race and racism, gender, intimacy, digital life and work inequity in academia. Dr. Buggs is engaged with several sociology journals as an editor and has made guest appearances on news outlets such as NBC News.
Tyler McCreary, Ph.D., is an associate professor of geography and faculty affiliate. Dr. McCreary’s research examines how settler colonialism and racial capitalism inflect processes of environmental, labor, and community governance in North America. In 2024, he authored “Indigenous Legalities, Pipeline Viscosities: Colonial Extractivism and Wet’suwet’en Resistance.”
Having faculty affiliates with various backgrounds and areas of expertise and interest has aided in creating the program’s intellectually diverse and interdisciplinary community.
To view photos showcasing the program’s history and evolution, visit our flickr album.
For more information about current programs and activities, visit coss.fsu.edu/aas. For more information about our college’s history as we celebrate our 50th Anniversary, visit coss.fsu.edu/50th.