As an Africana Studies minor, the craziness that is going on within the department is not only unfair, it’s downright unacceptable. For the last year, bomb after bomb has been dropped on this department. As a student, for every bomb that has been dropped I have been there to fight for my professor and my department. I think it’s unfair that my voice still has not been heard. I am not the only student that has been fighting it; a group of us has started Facebook pages and attended meetings and forums. Still, after everything we do, nothing has changed—we just get more bombs. 

I personally got involved when I found out that one of my favorite professors may no longer work here at the University of Massachusetts Boston. I have been part of the fight to save Africana Studies ever since. I took interest in the Africana Studies Department not just because I’m a black student, but because the professors are actually involved with the community and they teach not just from books but from their own experience.

After taking Black Concussions, my freshmen seminar, I wanted to take more classes and be part of other things in the black community. During my sophomore year, Anthony Van Der Meer told his class and other students about a trip to Selma, Alabama to be a part of the Fiftieth Anniversary of crossing the Edmund Bridge, a trip that the Africana Studies faculty and professors organized. Van Der Meer took fifty students with him to Selma, and we spent the weekend down there learning about the city as well as African-American history.

Those types of trips, those experiences that I had as a student because of my Africana Studies professors, are the moments that I will remember forever. Professor Aminah Pilgrim, one of the only female professors in the Africana Studies Department, started a club called the Hip Hop Initiative. Hip Hop Initiative was a club that got students conscious about the music they listen to and bring about positive change through listening to music that has conscious lyrics. Once again, a professor reached outside of the classroom and to the community. Pilgrim was denied tenure this year, which means that soon she will no longer be teaching at the university. This saddens me not just because she is leaving, but also because as a female I enjoy seeing professors that look like me not just in color but in gender as well.  

Professors like these are professors that students want around, professors that schools should want to keep around, professors that make a difference not just in the classroom but in students’ lives. We need to keep faculty like this, faculty that connects to students. Not having professor like this will only make the department less effective. Having professors who do not even have Africana Studies backgrounds annoys me. How are students supposed to feel open to share their struggle if they do not feel like their professors are connecting with them, understanding their struggle?

Africana Studies is a department that caters to the needs of their students in and out of class. UMass Boston needs professors that care about their students. We do not want teachers teaching out of a text book—we want them teaching out of passion for the studies. Having Professors that have no background, racially or academically, in the Africana Studies Department is pointless. A better question is: Why would the university want a professor that is inadequate to teach students?