The mission of the Department of Africology and African American Studies (AAAS) is to provide robust and critical programs of study, research and service on the African world experience--including a particular focus on the life and culture of people of African descent in the Americas. The department pursues its mission by cultivating successive cadres of students imbued with community consciousness and equipped with intellectual tools for shaping the world of the present and the future, community engagement and diverse careers.
AAAS engages in its study of the African descent population in the United States, the African diaspora, and the African continent itself, using a broad array of interdisciplinary tools. It has touchstones in all branches of human endeavor. The multi-racial and multi-ethnic reality that is the United States and the world today has been shaped by multiple forces of human history, including science, technology, culture, entrepreneurship, the natural world, politics, literature, art, law, and education. Together with the overarching themes of the human experience--ideas, power, structure, and sustainability—these forces predominate as items of study within the multi-subject curriculum of AAAS.
All students graduating from EMU will enter a world in which these same forces and concerns will be matters of politics, public policy, societal structure, health and well-being. Technology and STEM will be a part of the broad canvas upon which their lives will unfold. Interweaving themselves throughout every society in the world will be the variables of race, ethnicity, class, religion, and gender--issues at the heart of the inquiry in AAAS. Ultimately, a graduate of the Master of Arts program in Africology and African American Studies is equipped with knowledge, skills, and techniques necessary for effective functioning in a multicultural, multiracial, and technologically advanced society.
As a concrete expression of its mission, the department currently offers a Master of Arts in Africology and African American Studies, a Bachelor's degree program in Africology and African American Studies, a minor in Africology and African American Studies, a graduate certificate in Africology and African American Studies and an undergraduate certificate in African Studies.