Columbia U. Will Suspend Its African-Studies Institute

[Harold F. Schiffman]

 http://chronicle.com/daily/2006/07/2006071110n.htm, Tuesday, July 11,
2006

Columbia U. Will Suspend Its African-Studies Institute and Offer a Program
Instead

By PIPER FOGG

Despite objections from some professors, alumni, and students, Columbia
University has temporarily suspended its Institute for African Studies,
one of eight regional institutes at its School of International and Public
Affairs. Lisa Anderson, the school's dean, said on Monday that the center
had been without a permanent director for several years because no senior
faculty members had stepped up to take on the role. "We had a period where
it was dry," she said. So administrators decided that instead of
essentially maintaining the charade of having a fully functioning
institute, she said, they instead will suspend the center and put its
resources toward African programming, which will be run out of her office.
But the institute's defenders, who have created a blog calling for its
reopening, say that the university unfairly took action during the summer,
when fewer people are on the campus to oppose the move. In an open letter
written last month to Columbia's president, Lee C. Bollinger, students in
the school's Pan African Network argue that, in closing the center,
Columbia "sadly joins the rest of the world in the continued
marginalization of Africa."

On the contrary, said Ms. Anderson, by redirecting money that paid for an
acting director's salary, administrators will be able to strengthen the
university's African offerings, including new classes this fall on
contemporary Africa. Also, she said, she hoped that admitting the
program's shortcomings will create the necessary pressure to improve the
situation. Ms. Anderson added that the decision was made in May, but that
"people just weren't paying attention."