Problems have also persisted in the area of the department's "intellectual mission." Ephraim Isaac, a former associate professor of Afro-American Studies and a scholar of Ethiopian languages, literature and Church history, filed suit this summer against the University, charging bias in the decision to deny him tenure. Isaac contends that Harvard discriminated against him because he is strictly an "Africanist." Rosovsky has said in the past that Afro-Am should place emphasis on the "Americanist" side of the concentration. The University's defense in the case is that the Faculty's instructions to give preference to Americanists over Africanists was not discriminatory, but a matter of field preference.
For his part, Huggins says he doesn't "find Afro-Am an either/or proposition--it is a study of Africans in the new world principally, but not exclusively. We're naturally interested in African culture and society. We're interested necessarily in the Caribbean, and perhaps in Latin America for comparative purposes." But, Huggins adds quickly, "No program can take the world as its field. Africa is a very rich field in itself. I do not see us becoming an African studies department."
More recently, Selwyn R. Cudjoe, assistant professor of Afro-American Studies and an expert in Caribbean literature, was denied promotion to associate professor despite recommendations from both academics in his field and students. The executive committee solicited outside advice before reaching a verdict on Cudjoe's status--not normally done in non-tenure cases--and committee member Richard B. Freeman, professor of Economics, said in late July that the committee had tried to be "as fair as possible" in its deliberations.
More than 75 students staged a rally last May, demanding that the executive committee renew Cudjoe's contract and claiming that "ideological differences between Cudjoe and committee members hindered his chances for reappointment. Freeman denied that ideological considerations affected the final decision, but student reaction this fall will undoubtedly prove irate.
Students and faculty were also bewildered last spring by the committee's decision in late April not to consider Eugene D. Genovese, professor of history at Rochester University and a top-flight historian in the field of slavery, for its next appointment after Huggins. Committee members said that at Huggins' request, they had decided to make their next appointment in Afro-American literature.
Huggins says now, "We originally tried to organize a concentration with a historical-cultural bias. As it worked out, it seemed other options were open to us. We're now looking for a different type of balance, trying to find people trained in one of the conventional social sciences who will help direct undergraduates." In other words, Huggins hopes to strike a balance that will serve a wide range of student interests, including law, business and government on the one hand, and teaching, literature and the humanities on the other. "Which is in no way to suggest a dimunition of either," he stresses.
Undergraduates, Huggins hopes, will again be drawn to the department once this grand design is set in motion. "The program as it is doesn't need radical change--and we can't expect anything dramatic," he says. While he admits as chairman he must look at the number of concentrators, Huggins says he doesn't want to focus on quantity. "It's a qualitative matter--I see it as a way of developing a competence in students, a means of training oneself to do something they could not do otherwise."
Huggins' philosophy, then, does not entail the study of the liberal arts for just its own sake. "Reading and listening to lectures are not what undergraduate education is all about. A concentration can and should develop ways of thinking about issues and problems. I hope students will see the concentration as a means for doing something, not just learning something," he says.
"When students discover it's possible to develop skills that will serve them in the future, that's how we'll get our concentrators," Huggins adds. No matter what, Afro-Am faces a watershed year. The bristling skepticism about the Afro-Am Department on campus is rooted in a history of tension and controversy, and it will be a while before officials can dispel doubts about the future. And no matter what, all eyes will focus on the placid figure of Nathan Huggins, who has just sat down in the hottest of hot seats.