The 听will have a home in the Macky Auditorium building, CU officials announced today.
An aerial view of the CU Boulder campus shows Macky Auditorium in the lower-right corner.
CAAAS will be located in what Reiland Rabaka, an ethnic studies professor and the center鈥檚 director, said would be a first-floor, highly visible听and easily accessible听space in Macky. The university announced the new center on May 20.
鈥淚 am grateful to Provost Russ Moore and Executive Vice Provost for Academic Resource Management Ann Schmiesing for helping to secure this vital space听from which the CAAAS will manage major program areas that include research, visual and performing arts, and student services,鈥� Rabaka said. 鈥淭he center will sponsor undergraduate and graduate scholarships, faculty research and creative work awards, teaching awards and will host public lectures, panels, workshops, conferences, cultural functions听and more."
Rabaka also said the space would support the center鈥檚 goals of providing 鈥渃ulturally relevant African and African American student services鈥� and would host 鈥減ostdoctoral fellows, visiting scholars, visiting artists听and doctoral students specializing in African, African American听and African Diaspora Studies.鈥�
CAAAS is believed to be 鈥渢he first center that has the support of, and that will partner with, the Black Student Alliance, the Black Faculty and Staff Association, the CU Black Alumni Association and the Boulder Chapter of the NAACP,鈥� Rabaka said.
Because the building in which Macky Auditorium is located has both performance space and research centers and is part of the historic heart of the campus, 鈥渋t鈥檚 an ideal location for the CAAAS,鈥� Schmiesing added.
鈥淢acky houses the Center of the American West, the Center for Humanities and the Arts听and the American Music Research Center. Housing the CAAAS in Macky will enable fruitful collaborations with these longstanding centers,鈥� Schmiesing said.
Rabaka said the work of the CAAAS would begin soon, but the formal move-in and full occupation of its offices in Macky would be 鈥渙ngoing throughout the fall.鈥�
The center has been one of the highlights of his intellectual life, he added.
鈥淚've partnered with students, administrators, alumni听and community members who share my vision for a dedicated space on the Boulder campus to learn about and exchange African, African American听and African diaspora history and culture,鈥� he said. 鈥淚t has been a collective effort, and I am honored to lead it and to be the inaugural director of the new center.
