After a summer of hands-on research, Eastern Michigan University Chemistry Professor Ruth Ann Armitage and students Jaime Williams and Avi Dragun presented groundbreaking research at the 11th World Congress on Mummy Studies in Cusco, Peru. The trio presented their findings on 2,000-year-old mummy textiles, marking the first time EMU has been represented at the international gathering alongside leading archaeologists, scientists, and museum experts.

The World Congress on Mummy Studies is an academic event held every three years, bringing together scientists from around the globe to study mummies through state-of-the-art methods, conservation and museum management, and the ethical aspects of research and exhibition. 

“Once I heard the congress would be in Peru, I knew I had to jump on the opportunity,” said Armitage. “What began as an invitation to attend quickly became a chance for Jaime and Avi to showcase their work on an international stage. When their presentations were approved, we poured our energy into preparing, knowing how meaningful this moment could be for them.”

Williams and Dragun, both undergraduate Chemistry students, dedicated much of the academic year and part of their summer to prepare for the congress. They created a fabric-based research poster, provided samples for analysis, and spent countless hours interpreting data and refining results through advanced techniques such as mass spectrometry and Raman spectroscopy. The opportunity offered them a rare chance to present work usually reserved for graduate students and seasoned professionals.

“Our students have been analyzing yarn samples from a single Peruvian mummy bundle, and the results have been remarkable,” said Armitage. “By studying the dyes, radiocarbon dating the fibers, and examining isotope ratios, we can determine what plants and animals were used to make the textiles, when they were created, and even where the llamas and alpacas that produced the wool once grazed. Those details help us piece together not just how the textiles were made, but also what they reveal about the culture, environment, and quality of life of the individual wrapped within them.”

“Getting to Peru wasn’t easy, but standing there with Avi and sharing the work we’ve poured so much into was unforgettable,” said Williams. “The experience not only validated our hard work but also strengthened my dream of becoming an analytical chemist and continuing to explore the world of archaeological chemistry.”

Dragun agreed, emphasizing the value of EMU’s supportive environment. “Being able to present our research as undergrads is rare,” she said. “The trust our professors have in us and the opportunities we’ve been given have prepared me with skills and confidence that will guide my future.”

The students achieved this milestone through EMU’s chemistry program in the College of Arts and Sciences, which prioritizes hands-on research and empowers undergraduate students to contribute meaningfully to professional, real-world scholarship.

Read the full EMU Today story

Allie Muschong (Biology major, Physics minor) is first author on a paper entitled “A Survey of Ethics Courses in U. S. STEM Bachelor of Science Programs.” The paper, published on the peer-reviewed site, onlineethics.org, was co-authored by Muschong’s mentor, Professor Marshall Thomsen (Physics & Astronomy). The paper showed that opportunities for courses that focus on ethics in science are more common in biology departments than in chemistry or physics departments.

The research was done under the auspices of a grant from the National Science Foundation to study the role of ethics education in science.

Allie, reflecting on her experience, said, “I never expected to have a publishing experience during my undergraduate career, but undergoing the writing, submission, and feedback processes has been invaluable. I’m grateful for Dr. Thomsen’s guidance, and I will take these skills with me as I look ahead to graduate research and beyond.”

For the last three years, Preservation Studies students and professors have been working on a project to restore the Beaver Head Light Station, a historic lighthouse on the southern tip of Beaver Island. 

Dan Bonenberger, Professor of Preservation Studies, and Donna Avina, graduate student in Preservation Studies, recently discussed their work on the project with Michigan Publidc Radio's April Baer. Bonenberger and Avina explained that they have been working not only to document, repair, and preserve the building, but also to open it to visitors. “We want to tell the story of the people who lived here, the families who were living here,” said Avina. 

Avina explained that the work of preservation is a collaboration with local stakeholders. “When I think of how I want to move forward in this field, I think that getting the input of the community, and making sure that what I’m working on is something they want and really desire, because I can want something but it means nothing if that want is not the same.”

Listen to the Stateside interview.

Peter Blackmer, Associate Professor of Africology and African American Studies, has a new book out with the University of Virginia Press. Unleashing Black Power explores the local dynamics, national connections, and global context of the Black freedom movement in Harlem from 1954 to 1964, illuminating how activists, organizers, and ordinary people mounted their resistance to systemic racism in the Jim Crow North. The richness of Black radical thought and action in this period made Harlem a key battleground in the national civil rights movement, transformed local Black grassroots politics, and facilitated the rise of Black Power in New York City. At the same time, the city’s attempts to clamp down on activists revealed the repressive nature of Northern liberalism and heralded the expansion of the carceral state. Dr. Blackmer argues that this decade of confrontations between Black communities and white state power caused Harlem residents and activists to seek “new means” for achieving freedom within a city, state, and nation determined to deny it. Tracing the dual evolution of Black radicalism and white resistance, Unleashing Black Power offers a new framework for analyzing the epochal urban uprisings in the 1960s.

"The inspiration [for the book] really came from my time as an intern at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture when I was an undergrad at Wagner College," Blackmer relates. "When I wasn’t giving tours of exhibits, my supervisors often let me spend my time researching in the collections. I started learning about the 1964 Harlem Rebellion and decided to write my senior thesis on the causes behind it."

"Throughout the research, I was inspired by the stories I was learning of local people who challenged white supremacy in the nation’s largest city and fought to create a radically different world. I was also deeply influenced by the Black Lives Matter movement and the national uprisings in response to the police murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor."

Jeanne Theoharis, Distinguished Professor of Political Science at Brooklyn College, calls Unleashing Black Power "a needed book." "Its focus on Black radicalism in New York in the decade before the Harlem uprising and the assassination of Malcolm X, and its centering of Black women organizers, is particularly valuable."

"No one has ever taken this kind of deep dive into Harlem Radicalism in the late 1950s and early 1960s, exploring the complex political environment Black radicals in NYC were forced to navigate at a moment when the attention of the nation was focused on the Southern civil rights movement," writes Mark D. Naison, Professor of History at Fordham University. "Blackmer shows that the Black Radical Tradition in the US was vibrant even in years when many scholars thought it had declined. His book brings many grassroots leaders to life who deserve the attention. It should be read widely."

Read more at the University of Virginia Press.

Professor Sandra Murchison, in her tenth year as Director of the School of Art and Design at EMU, has been elected as the incoming President of the National Council of Arts Administrators. Her two-year term as President commences January 1, 2026. She currently serves as Secretary and executive officer to the NCAA board. The stated mission of NCAA “is to provide a forum for the exchange of ideas, the identification of problems, and the generation of shared solutions to the multitude of issues that confront arts administrators in higher education today”. As NCAA Board President, Murchison hopes to strengthen arts institutions by helping to develop a new generation of arts administrators prepared to navigate the headwinds of higher education who lead with empathy, dedication and curiosity.

Visit the NCAA website

Earlier this year, Dr. Eric Portenga, Associate Professor of Geology, secured $397,000 in grant funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF) for his proposal, “Dating ice retreat and advance along the lobate southern margin of the Laurentide Ice Sheet with terrestrial cosmogenic nuclides.” This work re-examines what we know about the timing of ice sheet retreat from the region following the end of the last Ice Age.

Cosmogenic nuclides are like little isotopic clocks ticking away in minerals hosted in glacial erratics – the large boulders you see dotting Michigan’s landscapes – and they are recording how long these erratics have been exposed to cosmic radiation from space after being uncovered by melting ice.

The grant was funded through NSF’s EMpowering Broader Academic Capacity and Education (EMBRACE) program, which seeks to build research capacity at non-R1 institutions. Primary goals of this project are to increase public awareness of the Geosciences on campus and to create greater geology and Earth science research abilities for faculty on campus.

Through this award, the Earth Science Support Lab in the Mark Jefferson Science Complex will be renovated and fitted out with new rock-processing equipment that allows researchers to isolate specific minerals from rock samples. When finished, the new laboratory facilities will be used to run Special Topics courses for undergraduate students, through which they will go through the process of dating a rock.

Additionally, this project supports the Great Lakes Earth Exchange – a new invited speaker series (informally called the GLEE Club). Each year, four speakers will be invited to EMU’s campus. Three will be graduate students at universities throughout the Great Lakes region doing Geology and Earth Science research in the Great Lakes. The fourth speaker may not always be a Geoscientist but will be a professional who requires a broad understanding of Earth Science in their career.

Over the course of the grant (2025-2029) Dr. Portenga will oversee eight undergraduate research projects, dating ~80 erratics across Michigan’s Lower Peninsula, all of which will better inform us about the history and landscape resources of our own region and also shed light on the future of Earth’s remaining ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica.

For more information, please reach out to Dr. Portenga (eporteng@emich.edu) and check out the project’s webpage.

Dates and times for GLEE Club speakers’ talks will be posted to the CAS and Geography & Geology Department’s Events pages.

Jeromy Hopgood, CMTA School Director and Professor of Entertainment Design & Technology, is the Projection Designer for Here There Are Blueberries, now being staged at Detroit Public Theatre. This marks the first licensed production of the play in the region, following its national tour.

Here There Are Blueberries, by Moisés Kaufman and Amanda Gronich, dramatizes the discovery of a trove of Nazi-era photographs depicting SS officers enjoying leisure time at Auschwitz — images that disturbingly humanize the perpetrators and ask urgent questions about complicity, memory, and accountability. The piece interrogates how banality, bureaucracy, and culture enable systems of atrocity: it reminds us that “no genocide starts with the killing,” and forces audiences to consider the subtler machinery behind historical wrongdoing.

Commissioned through the Tectonic Theater Project, Blueberries had its theatrical origins at La Jolla Playhouse in 2022 and its Off-Broadway premiere at New York Theatre Workshop in 2024. From there it toured nationally, earning praise and awards, before arriving in Detroit for its regional debut. In its original staging, characters read archival materials or narrate testimony while projected images stand as integral “characters” in the storytelling. For the Detroit Public Theatre production, projection design is especially pivotal: the images guide emotional and moral framing, bridging archival record and theatrical presence. 

This opportunity comes on the heels of a sabbatical during which Hopgood contributed as an assistant designer on the Metropolitan Opera’s premiere of Moby-Dick in New York. Working alongside projection designer Elaine J. McCarthy — a veteran in opera and theater whose credits include the Broadway hit Wicked  — Hopgood had the opportunity to expand his research and creative agenda at the country’s most prestigious opera venue.  

That multidisciplinary crossover underscores how disciplines, practice, and pedagogy intersect in CMTA. This production — and the continued creative work of EMU faculty on stages beyond campus — reinforces the mission of the School of Communication, Media & Theatre Arts: to marry rigorous training with real-world practice, to position our students for careers in world-class venues, and to signal Eastern Michigan University’s ongoing commitment to shaping the industries in which our faculty, staff, and students work.

Here There Are Blueberries runs now through November 2nd in Midtown Detroit. For more information, please visit Detroit Public Theatre.

The migration patterns of male brown tarantulas across Colorado may not be a standard migration. NPR dives into the specifics of these patterns and the traits of brown tarantulas to uncover details about these fuzzy crawlers.

Cara Shillington, a biology professor at Eastern Michigan University, doesn't consider the trek a migration because "this is not a one-way movement from one location to a different location."

Arachnid aficionados say although male tarantulas spend most of their lives in their underground burrows, they leave them to find female tarantulas once they reach sexual maturity.

"They get to this nice, reflective color on their exoskeleton. They'll look a lot prettier," said Chandler Peters, an entomology keeper at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum.

The females, who can live up to 30 years, never leave their burrows. And if the males snoop around too much under the earth, they could suddenly end up in another spider's burrow and become a meal, Shillington said.

Male tarantulas are typically low on fuel during mating season, as they aren't eating or drinking at all, according to Dallas Haselhuhn (MA Ecology, Evolution and Organismal Biology, 2024), who studied Colorado brown tarantulas during his graduate program at Eastern Michigan University.

Read the full NPR article

Ari McCaskill (MA 2022, Africology and African American Studies) serves as the Executive Director of Special Programs at Albion College in Albion, Michigan. “I perform administrative tasks associated with developing epistemological underpinnings related to the arts and humanities as vehicles for social change," explains McCaskill. "In the interdisciplinary spirit of Black studies, members of the James L. Curtis Institute for Social Change at Albion College are exposed to classical works, art, and culture while applying their identities and lived experiences towards reinterpretation and envisioning new, more inclusive works. Embedded in my role is a curriculum development and teaching praxis related to Black Studies curriculum.” 

He further reports that he “has been busy since graduating from Eastern Michigan University’s master’s program in Africology and African American studies in 2022, including co-authoring a book chapter in an international publication, Dispatch from the Threshold, a comparative historical analysis of public housing activism in Newark, NJ., and building an institute for social change via the arts and humanities at Albion College.” Apart from his work as the Executive Director of Special Programs at Albion College, Ari has also been active in community service roles.

Although Abby Wiseman (BA 2004, Language, Literature, and Writing - Education, with a minor in Communication and Theatre Arts) is new to the hallways of Central Elementary, she is no stranger to the teaching staff, many of whom are her former students. 

Wiseman’s teaching career began at Kenowa Hills High School, where she taught speech communication, broadcast journalism and interpersonal communication for seven years. She also used to teach alongside Central’s current assistant principal, Chris Bernard. 

“When I started in 2007, I taught six different classes and had no classroom; I was on a cart traveling from class to class for two years,” Wiseman recalled. “I liked it. It kept me from getting bored, but I eventually got a classroom.”

She is now leading a building with teachers who once were students in her high-school classroom, and has former students bringing their kids to kindergarten and first grade. 

“I never really left the West Side, and these are people I’ve known for a long time,” Wiseman said. “That’s what made it feel like home.”

Read the full School News Network article

This year’s Alumni Award recipients are shining examples of how an EMU degree and commitment to the EMU community can lead to a life of achievement. The Office of Alumni Engagement and the Alumni Association Board of Directors continued the tradition of recognizing outstanding individuals at the 64th annual Alumni Awards ceremony held on Friday, Sept. 19.

Graduate of the Last Decade Award

Daniel Mathis Spadafore (BS, Social Science, 2007; PhD, Educational Leadership, 2019)

This Graduate of the Last Decade Award is presented to alumni from the past 10 years whose achievements showcase the value of an EMU education. Equipped with a deep background in higher education administration, this year’s awardee, Daniel Mathis Spadafore (BS07, PhD19), serves as chief of staff for the Michigan State University Eli Broad College of Business, helping lead strategic planning efforts, special projects and operational activities.

Alumni Achievement Award

Michael Page (BS, Theatre Arts, 2002)

Michael Page recently served as general manager of the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York City and was instrumental in bringing the Tony Awards to the venue in 2024. He owns and produces at MWP Entertainment LLC and serves as assistant professor and head of the MFA program in performing arts management at Brooklyn College.

Louise Missome-Engohang (BA 2025, Philosophy and Political Science), who graduated with Highest Honors in Philosophy, is one of four students nationwide to be recognized as a National Portz Scholar in the Collegiate Honors Council's annual competition for outstanding honors undergraduate essays. Louise’s Honors Thesis, "The Effects of Racial Gaslighting on Community Policing: An Exploration of Contemporary Hermeneutical Injustice within Marginalized Communities," was written under the direction of Professor Jill Dieterle and deals with the ethical and epistemic harms of racial gaslighting in the context of community policing. 

Eastern Michigan University students interested in exploring careers in fermentation can now pursue the first-ever scholarships dedicated to the field. Beginning in the 2025–26 academic year, undergraduate students will be eligible to apply for new Fermentation Science scholarships made possible by a donation from Anne and Jeffrey Kittendorf.

“We are proud to announce these Fermentation Science scholarships,” said Chemistry Professor Cory Emal, director of the Fermentation Science Program. “The funds are intended to support and elevate students pursuing careers in an increasingly competitive fermentation industry.”

The scholarship fund will provide four annual awards of $2,500 each, two for incoming students and two for upper-level students. Recipients will be chosen based on academic merit, demonstrated interest in fermentation science, and financial need.

For students already in the program, the impact of fermentation science extends far beyond the classroom. “You’re in a lab surrounded by food, your head’s full of knowledge, and it magically all clicks,” said EMU senior and fermentation science major Althea Fillman, reflecting on her experience in the advanced Food Fermentation course this semester.

The new scholarship fund reflects the University’s commitment to increasing access to specialized education, attracting top talent, and fostering a more inclusive learning environment.

Eastern’s Fermentation Science Program, launched in 2019, prepares students for careers in brewing, food science, and biotechnology. Students gain hands-on experience in chemistry and microbiology using industry-standard equipment and benefit from collaborations with over 10 Michigan breweries and organizations such as the Michigan Brewers Guild, The Brinery, Bløm Meadworks, and Schramm’s Mead.

Scholarship recipients will be recognized at EMU’s annual awards celebration, providing donors with the opportunity to meet the students and celebrate their achievements.

Read the full EMU Today article.

Eastern Michigan University celebrated a groundbreaking milestone: the graduation of the first cohort from its College in Prison program at the Women’s Huron Valley Correctional Facility—the only women’s prison in Michigan. EMU is the first public institution to establish a bachelor’s program for incarcerated women, where 12 students were awarded Bachelor of General Studies degrees, each graduating with a 3.93 GPA.

Launched in 2023, EMU’s College in Prison program now serves 75 incarcerated students, offering the same in-person instruction provided on the University’s main campus. Led by EMU faculty, the program empowers students to engage in academic research, contribute to scholarly conversations, and gain essential skills that support both personal growth and future reintegration into society.

“These women, their hard work, and this achievement represent the power and purpose of education in prison - an experience for the whole person to develop their critical thinking skills, harness their capacity for compassion, and demonstrate their gifts and abilities on a platform that is societally recognized as excellent,” said Meghan Lechner, director of the College in Prison and Returning Citizens Fellowship at EMU. “What started as a group of 20 students in 2023 has grown to 75 eager and engaged EMU students at Women's Huron Valley Correctional facility. This is the first of many exciting graduations and celebrations to come.”

According to research, women are the fastest-growing segment of the incarcerated population in the U.S. Many are survivors of trauma, poverty, and systemic inequality. Once released, they face staggering barriers to employment, housing, and reintegration. EMU’s College in Prison program aims to reverse these patterns by centering education as a tool for empowerment and lasting change.

In 2024, EMU’s Writing Center extended its tutoring and writing support through one-on-one instruction twice a month at the prison. This spring, 12 incarcerated students presented academic projects on topics ranging from improvisational teaching to dismantling the school-to-prison pipeline at EMU’s 45th Annual Undergraduate Symposium.

In addition to academic success, students have also created extracurricular communities. They have founded and actively led several clubs, including the BOSS Business Club, the WHOLE ME Wellness Club, the Writing Club, and the Behind the Wire Student Newsletter. 

“Not only is this a significant milestone for these women individually, but it also sparks tremendous cause for celebration for the state of Michigan as a whole, the EMU faculty and administrators that have worked hard to create meaningful programming, the state officials who have funded and supported this initiative, and the collaborative efforts of the Michigan Department of Corrections,” said Lechner.

Graduate Katherine Woods reflected on the journey.

"Respect, integrity, and excellence are the qualities that EMU embodies,” said Woods. “I am more than grateful for the opportunity afforded to me through EMU. Because of EMU, I have reached a milestone, one that is a testament to this elusive experience and the expansion of knowledge that has been cultivated through persistence and determination." 

Looking ahead, many of the graduating students plan to pursue master’s degrees in fields such as business, social work, and architecture. Others are preparing for careers in community development, entrepreneurship, and nonprofit advocacy.

To support their reentry, EMU will provide personalized reentry planning, connecting students to essential community resources to help them achieve a positive start and contribute meaningfully to their communities. 

EMU's College in Prison program was begun in 2007 by Dr. Robin Lucy, Professor of English Language and Literature, as a non-degree program. For 16 years the program was coordinated by CAS faculty members, including Dr. Lucy, Dr. Kathryn Ziegler (Women's and Gender Studies), and Dr. Beth Currans (Women's and Gender Studies). In 2022, after Pell Grants were restored to incarcerated students, Dr. Currans expanded the program into a Bachelor's of General Studies. In 2023, Meghan Lechner was appointed Director of the College in Prison program. Dr. Currans continues to oversee the academic aspects of the program. Professor Decky Alexander (Theatre and EMU Engage) and Dr. Barbara Walters (Social Work) also support Ms. Lechner and CiP.

To learn more about EMU’s College in Prison program, visit the webpage.

Read the full EMU Today article.

Watch a Fox 2 Detroit report.

In July 2026, the United States will celebrate its two hundred and fiftieth birthday, and to help EMU prepare for the semiquincentennial, the Department of History and Philosophy is hosting six nationally recognized scholars to talk about the worldwide causes and consequences of American independence. Entitled “Globalizing the American Revolution,” the 2025-26 History Speakers Series is open to EMU students, faculty, and friends who wish to know more about the country’s place in world history.

“This series invites us to think beyond 1776—to see the American Revolution not only as a national story, but as a transatlantic and even global phenomenon that reverberated across empires, colonies, and continents,” notes Assistant Professor and History Speakers Series chair Walter Lorenz. “From the streets of Boston to the Caribbean islands, from the Senegal River to Indigenous nations and beyond, each talk uncovers how revolutionary struggles were interconnected across time and space.”

Matthijs Tieleman of Illinois State University spoke on September 15 about “The Patriot Atlantic: The Dawn of the American Revolution.” In his talk, Professor Tieleman explored the connections between the independence movement in the American colonies and patriot causes in the Netherlands and Ireland. On October 27, David Waldstreicher (CUNY) will speak on “Black Poets and the Patriots Who Mocked Them in Jefferson’s America.” Future speakers include Chris Hodson (BYU), Manisha Sinha (Connecticut), Fay Yarbrough (Rice), and Sarah Pearsall (Johns Hopkins). 

Professor Lorenz adds, “I believe we can’t understand the legacies of the American Revolution without reckoning with who was left out of its promises—African Americans, Indigenous peoples, and others who fought for freedom on different terms. Whether it’s the poetry of Phillis Wheatley or the political upheavals of Reconstruction, these talks reveal how deeply the Revolution continues to shape debates about justice and equality today.”

The EMU History Speakers Series is generously funded by a gift from the estate of Professor Emeritus William Donald “Don” Briggs. Briggs was a long-time member of the Department of History and Philosophy, teaching at EMU from 1964 to 1995. His legacy ensures that EMU is able to enrich the experience of the university’s students, faculty, and friends.

The 2025-26 EMU History Speakers Series asks us to rethink what it means for a revolution to be truly transformative. “This year’s series isn’t just about the past,” Professor Lorenz reminds us, “it’s about confronting how the ideals of the Revolution—freedom, equality, citizenship—have been continually contested and redefined through time.”

All talks are open to the public, and undergraduate students can earn LBC credit by attending. For more information, please contact Professor Lorenz at florenz@emich.edu or go to the History Speakers website.

This fall several Geology courses have taken field trips to geologic areas both nearby and farther afield. Dr. Lindsay Kolbus took the ESSC 114 Geology of National Parks class to Cuyahoga Valley National Park, where they looked at the rocks forming the waterfalls, and discussed the differences in weathering. Students had the opportunity to see some exposed bedrock in the real world and apply the knowledge of the park that they learned in class. They visited Brandywine Falls as well as the Ledges area of the park, taking notes and making sketches along the way. The image is at the overlook at the Ledges.

Dr. Eric Portenga took his ESSC 325 Geomorphology course to the Ruthven Nature Area in Ann Arbor. The site is a glacial kame, left behind ~15,000 years ago as Michigan thawed after the last ice age. Students learned how to measure hillslope topography and reinforced their soil characterization skills. 

Finally, Drs. Blatchford and Clark took the ESSC 466W Global Tectonics class to western Maryland and nearby areas to explore the formation of the Appalachian mountains. Students learned how geologic deformation varies throughout a mountain belt, worked on measuring geologic features, and recorded their observations and interpretations in field books.

Eastern Michigan University is commemorating 50 years of its Africology and African American Studies (AAAS) department with a series of programs from now through winter 2026. Beginning in October, the campus will host a film series in Strong Hall, an alumni panel discussion in the Student Center, and a celebratory dinner. The commemoration continues in January with the “50 Years of Black Studies” exhibit in Halle Library, on display through March 2026, offering students, alumni, and community members the opportunity to reflect on the department’s legacy and impact.

“After 50 years, we’re still alive and thriving, which is not a small accomplishment,” said Victor Okafor, Department Head of AAAS. “Over the past five decades, AAAS at EMU has achieved major milestones, from establishing Michigan’s first Black Studies major in 1990 to launching the state’s first master of arts in Africology and African American Studies program in 2018. Along the way, we’ve prepared generations of graduates who have gone on to make meaningful contributions across society, while strengthening EMU’s commitment to a broad-based education.”

In 1975, what began as a center for African American Studies offering only a minor gradually evolved into a comprehensive undergraduate degree program, eventually leading to the establishment of a graduate program in AAAS. Through its interdisciplinary approach, the department fosters critical thinking on issues of race, identity, and culture, while preparing students for impactful careers and active civic participation.

To kick off the celebration, the series is set to highlight films that explore historical movements, creating space for audience discussion and connection. A host of AAAS faculty and staff are facilitating the film series, including Peter Blackmer, Toni Pressley-Sanon, Caralee Jones-Obeng, and Robert Fronta. 

The program series includes:

• Film Series (Strong Hall, Room 111, 5–7:30 p.m. / Student Center, Room 352, Oct. 6– Nov. 10). Screenings include Agents of Change, The Rape of Recy Taylor, The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution, and Mr. Soul!

• Alumni Panel Discussion (Student Center, Room 320, Friday, Oct. 10, 2–4 p.m.)

• Celebration Dinner (Friday, Oct. 10, 5 p.m.)

• Halle Library Book Display (Main Lobby, Oct. 1–24)

• Exhibit: 50 Years of Black Studies (Halle Library Gallery, January–March 2026)

The 50th anniversary celebration highlights the department’s enduring impact on scholarship and student achievement. Looking ahead, Africology and African American Studies at EMU remain committed to advancing critical inquiry, fostering intellectual growth, and preparing graduates to make meaningful contributions across fields and communities.

Since joining the department, Robert Fronta has been impressed with the support he receives from faculty and staff. “The department doesn’t treat learning as separate from the realities of our lives,  but instead, they integrate that understanding into their teaching and programming. Previous panel discussions such as race, gender, and politics or The Future of Black Politics show how the department continues to engage with urgent, real-world issues while preparing students to think critically, act responsibly, and lead with vision.”

For more information on the anniversary event or the Africology and African American Studies department, visit the website.