The Yale Corporation approved the change in status for African American Studies in recognition of its stature in the University and the outside academic community. The program has recruited superb junior and senior faculty and attracted graduate students with extraordinary talent and promise. Yale inaugurated the African American Studies Program in 1969. In 1978, African American Studies became the first program to offer an M.A., and in 1994, it launched a Ph.D. program. The Yale African American Studies Program has always been strongly interdisciplinary.
All faculty members hold joint appointments with other departments or programs.
While making a few faculty appointments of its own, the new department will maintain its interdisciplinary character and continue to share faculty with American Studies, Anthropology, Economics, English, French, History, History of Art, Political Science, Sociology and Theater Studies, as well as with the Divi nity School and the School of Medicine.