When pre-registration for spring classes begins in just over a week, a new course addition could mean the start of a new academic path for some students. Introduction to African American Studies, an interdisciplinary course to debut next semester, marks the most recent development in continuing efforts to create an African American Studies minor at Georgetown.

A coalition of faculty, students and administrators has been discussing the potential minor for more than two years. While the minor is not yet an official part of the university’s academic curriculum, the introductory course will measure student interest in the program and would be the initial requirement for students once it gets off the ground.

“It’s not just this [new] course. We are also drawing together a list of those courses that are already in the curriculum that could be applied,” Dean of the College Jane D. McAuliffe said. She described the addition of the introductory course to the curriculum as the beginning of a “pilot minor” to foster interest and development while a proposal is submitted to the university’s Curriculum Committee. McAuliffe said the committee’s approval, as well as additional consultation with students and faculty, would be necessary before African American Studies becomes an official academic program at Georgetown.

Of the top 25 universities in the U.S. News and World Report rankings, Georgetown is one of six schools without an African American Studies program, the others being mainly engineering schools or small liberal arts colleges.

“We’re a little bit behind,” sophomore GUSA representative Nazareth Haysbert (COL ’05) said of Georgetown’s lack of an African American Studies program. “One of the reasons I got involved was because constituents expressed an interest in [an African American Studies program,] or had taken courses related to African American concepts and felt a minor was warranted. There was interest,” Haysbert said.

As a member of GUSA’s Academic Affairs Advocacy Committee, he has been involved with the development of the proposal that has been submitted to the administration since last year, when the Student Association passed a resolution in support of the program.

“It’s definitely important to African Americans . but that’s not to say other cultural, ethnic groups won’t get involved,” Haysbert said, noting that his Arabic class and African history class include students from a wide variety of ethnic groups.

The progress of the minor’s development is encouraging to its supporters, as the introduction of the new course marks the most active development to date. “We’ve been in kind of a general test-the-waters stage for a year or two now,” cAuliffe said. “We don’t want to be just talking about it forever.”

According to the proposal, the potential minor would require Introduction to African American Studies. The course will be taught by English professor Angelyn Mitchell and is devoted to “the concepts and theories as well as the research methods in African American studies. Students will explore scholarship that presents the lives of African Americans,” according to a tentative course description. “It all starts and ends with students,” Haysbert said, emphasizing that student interest in the new class will be essential to future development of the program.

The minor would also require a literature and a history course devoted to the study of the African American experience. The options to fulfill these requirements would be drawn from a number of existing courses. Additionally, students would be required to take a Senior Independent Study to earn the minor.

A donation from alumna Valerie Beel (SFS ’92) in September provided start-up funds to get the program off the ground. Rough estimates budget the program at $15,000 to $20,000 – a relatively small cost for an academic program.

McAuliffe noted that the debut of the introductory class could facilitate additional donations. “It makes it a lot easier to go to other alums when we’ve got something to work with,” she said. “It’s not just a pipe dream, we have a much more persuasive case.”

The program costs should be minimalized by the interdisciplinary nature of the program. “Most of the resources we need are already here,” Haysbert said. The program would primarily incorporate already existing classes and faculty members who focus on African American-oriented areas of study.

Haysbert, however, said that although there are several faculty members qualified in the field, he hoped the development of the program would attract additional professors to Georgetown.

“To have the program succeed, we need to have more people like Dr. Mitchell,” Haysbert said. “We need have more [faculty members] in tenure track and qualified positions to ensure the success of this program.”

To raise awareness of the program’s development among students and faculty members, organizers plan to develop a lecture series to debut this spring that would draw notable experts in the field to speak on topics related to African American Studies. Haysbert said he hoped the lecture series would also garner the attention of top-notch faculty from other academic arenas draw them into the Georgetown program.

“We aim to become a program at par with many other leading schools in the nation, we’re dreaming big,” Haysbert said. “We at Georgetown do everything 150 percent – I expect no less of us, will settle for no less of us. He said the ultimate long-term goal is a program for an African American Studies major, but that project would require additional time and funding.

Though many similar institutions have had African American Studies programs for years, Georgetown’s curriculum has been sidetracked. McAuliffe said the development of a Georgetown program in recent years was the result of active faculty interest, not apathy or suppression of the field. “Even looking at other peer institutions, we can find that we are doing things that they are not doing,” McAuliffe said. “We want to make sure we address student need here. We’re going to take it step by step . and build sequentially.”