Africana Studies

Program Scope

The Department of Africana Studies at San Francisco State is the first Black Studies Department established on a four-year college campus in the United States. The birth of Black Studies at SF State in 1968 was inspired by student-led opposition to Western intellectual hegemony and racist scholarship that characterized limitations found in traditional approaches to college education. In 2005, the Department changed its name to Africana Studies.

In an equitable world, every student would know about the unparalleled and unmatched contributions that Africana-identified people have made to human civilization. These contributions include

• the formulation of the first system of government for a territorial state;
• creation of the foundations of science, mathematics, and advanced technology;
• the first written script, the foundations of philosophy and psychology;
• the building of the great pyramids and such modern inventions as the first electric light filament, the cotton gin, the first gas mask, the double effect evaporator, and the first design of a three stage rocket capable of interstellar flight.

In Africana Studies, students are able to learn about, critique, and be inspired by the accomplishments of Africana-identified people who shaped and are shaping the moral conscience, artistic genius, scientific and technical achievements as well as political activism of their time.

The Department of Africana Studies continues in the vanguard of intellectual discourse pertaining to domestic and global freedom as well as development of Africana-identified people throughout the world. The maturation of the discipline has resulted in new and innovative alternatives to traditional paradigms of oppression and exclusion. In addition to learning aspects of human history that have been omitted and/or appropriated, students learn how to recognize and challenge intellectual hegemony and racist science. The discipline of Africana Studies not only provides students with the experience of challenging traditional Western orthodoxy, but also facilitates opportunities to explore new and alternative paradigms and theories. In Africana Studies, students acquire and develop an appreciation for the origins of knowledge, the philosophy of science, and the politics of knowing. Students develop a social character and personal outlook that gives them the ability to contribute to the well-being of themselves and humanity.

Curriculum in Africana Studies is designed to address the needs of the Africana-identified communities. That is, the community is situated as a classroom where lessons can be learned and taught. The discipline of Africana Studies prepares students to not only understand the world they live in but also to see where the world is wanting and to have the resources, skills as well as the desire to make it better.

Students majoring in Africana Studies are required to complete a 39-unit program consisting of core courses and electives that contain emphases in the areas of arts and humanities as well as behavioral and social sciences. Our majors engage courses that connect Africana Studies --as culturally-grounded, equity education-- to core concepts concerning STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Math) and environmental justice. Africana Studies is by definition interdisciplinary and our students engage community-grounded learning that provides work and service experience to better prepare graduates for careers and/or postgraduate education.

The core courses facilitate an appreciation of the historical developments and intellectual foundations of the discipline as well as the critical knowledge base, academic skills, and methodological techniques essential to the field of Africana Studies. The courses offered in the emphases provide opportunities for students to gain a deeper intellectual grasp of the field.

Program Learning Outcomes

1. Facilitates student analysis and knowledge of the conceptual approaches and tools of inquiry best suited to explore, explain, describe, and advance the lived experience(s) of Africana peoples;
2. Conduct critical, scientific research on issues of relevance to Africana peoples;
3. Creatively and critically evaluate issues that Africana-identified people experience in unique and common ways;
4. Apply, analyze, and encourage teachers’, students’ and alumni sharing of Africana Studies’ curricular outcomes, knowledge and research with community stakeholders, organizations as well as actively engage in service learning projects;
5. Synthesize a core curriculum concerning how people of African descent have demonstrated resilience: consciously shaping and reshaping their environments over time and in the present, while meeting challenges, achieving goals, and resisting oppression;
6. Demonstrate and evaluate specialized learning and competencies necessary in professions in which they will encounter people of African descent;
7. Analyze the diversities of Black experiences as a window to fully comprehend the American experience, and thus, the human experience.