Council on African Studies

The Yale University Council on African Studies proposes to serve as a National Resource Center. Our goals are to strengthen African studies at Yale and nationwide and to prepare African studies teachers at all levels.

To realize these objectives we propose the following: 1) We will strengthen the Yale African studies area curriculum by supporting course development, sponsoring seminars and organizing conferences on four topics: a) health communication in Africa, b) community involvement in sustaining natural resources, c) Africa and the Global African diaspora, and d) Islam and Arabic in Africa. 2) In addition we will increase course coverage of North Africa by providing partial support to hire a social sciences specialist on North Africa. 3) We will further strengthen our language curriculum by offering Moroccan Arabic and additional African languages. We will continue to strengthen courses and materials for advanced language instruction, and we will intensify work on performance-based instruction and assessment. 4) We will expand Outreach training and programming by adding new language activities and by working with Yale's Teacher Preparation Program. We will also expand services to K-12 teachers and partner with the Connecticut Center for International Business Education and Research (CIBER) to offer three programs in Business and Business Education, and hold an annual symposium for community college faculty. 5) We will strengthen our linkages and establish new connections with institutions in Africa. 6) We will expand and improve our communications with institutions and individuals regionally, nationally, and internationally. And, 7) we will increase expertise in African studies and African languages by training 16 students each year with Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) fellowships. We will support eight students at Yale annually with academic year FLAS fellowships and will support eight students selected in national competitions with summer FLAS fellowships.