Harris

Robert L. Harris Jr., professor of African-American history at Cornell since 1975, has been appointed director of the Africana Studies and Research Center (ASRC), for a five-year term beginning July 1, Provost Kent Fuchs has announced.

Harris succeeds Professor Salah Hassan, whose five-year term ends June 30. In a letter to the ASRC community, Fuchs said that Hassan has provided "excellent and strong leadership of Africana over these past five years. He helped guide the center through a pivotal external review and subsequent cluster of new faculty hiring."

Harris served as Africana Center director from 1986 to 1991 and as Cornell's vice provost for diversity and faculty development from 2000 to 2008. He worked with Lynette Chappell-Williams, director of the Office of Workforce Diversity, Equity and Life Quality, to craft Cornell's Statement on Diversity and Inclusiveness, "Open Doors, Open Hearts and Open Minds."

Key programs and initiatives established during his tenure as vice provost include the Provost's Academic Diversity Postdoctoral Fellowship Program, resulting in the hiring of minority scholars as tenure-track faculty; an annual list of open faculty searches to aid greater collaboration across disciplines and dual-career placement; the Upstate New York Higher Education Recruitment Consortium; and the National Science Foundation-funded CU-ADVANCE Center office. Among other honors and awards, he received the Perkins Prize for Interracial Understanding in 2000 and the Cook Award for Commitment to Women's Issues at Cornell in 2008.

"The Africana Studies and Research Center has gained new vitality with renovation and expansion of our facility and the addition of outstanding faculty," Harris said. "I look forward to working with students, alumni and colleagues to further anchor the Africana Center in the academic mission of Cornell."

Harris studies how African-Americans have come to their current cultural, socio-economic and political position in the United States; how they have coped with enslavement, segregation, discrimination and poverty; and how they have developed a rich heritage that has challenged and improved the country. The author of more than 50 journal articles and book chapters, Harris has received research grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Ford Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation. He is past president (1991-93) of the Association for the Study of Afro-American Life and History. His books include "The Columbia Guide to African American History Since 1939" (2006), with Rosalyn Terborg-Penn.

He also is the national historian for Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, founded at Cornell in 1906. He is revising and expanding its official history book, and is working on a biography of educator, diplomat and administrator Jerome Heartwell "Brud" Holland '39, a two-time All-American football star at Cornell.

"We are looking forward to working with Professor Harris as he continues his legacy of exemplary service and commitment to the university," Fuchs said. "We are fortunate to have someone with his experience and vision to continue the trajectory of academic excellence begun under the leadership of Professor Hassan."

Hassan, a Goldwin Smith Professor, came to Cornell in 1993. He teaches African and African diaspora art history in the Department of History of Art and Visual Culture, which he chaired from 2000 to 2005. He also is director of the Institute for Comparative Modernities and founder and editor of NKA: Journal of Contemporary African Art. As acting director of ASRC from 2003 to 2005, he oversaw a major facilities renovation and expansion. Other key developments during his directorship have included strengthening the center's faculty and its intellectual mission, expanding African language instruction, drafting a Ph.D. program and establishing linkages with African universities.