The Department of African American and African Studies (AAAS) was initially founded as a Ph.D. granting program in 2002. On July 1, 2019, AAAS became a department. In Spring 2020, MSU appointed Ruth Nicole Brown the inaugural chair.
A group of Michigan State University faculty and students from the Department of Theatre in collaboration with the Wharton Center Institute for Arts & Creativity led an effort to bring the Next Narrative Monologue Competition (NNMC) to Michigan, a national high school competition that celebrates the diverse perspectives and worldviews of the Black community by bringing works of contemporary Black…
The world of language teaching has faced enormous challenges in delivering quality education due to the abrupt transition to remote learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. One of the major challenges is the difficulty of using traditional textbooks in the new reality, and Arabic language programs are no exception. Two Assistant Professors of Arabic at Michigan State University, Sadam Issa and…
As an applied linguist with interests in language education, Peter De Costa is interested in how policy decisions impact language learning and teaching and is drawn to the identity, ideological, and emotional consequences of these decisions.
Steven Fraiberg, Associate Professor in the Department of Writing, Rhetoric, and American Cultures at Michigan State University, received a 2022 Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC) Technical and Scientific Communication Award for the Best Article Reporting Qualitative or Quantitative Research in Technical or Scientific Communication. Fraiberg’s article, “Unsettling Start-Up Ecosystems: Geographies, Mobilities, and Transnational Literacies in the Palestinian Start-Up…
The Cube, which is housed in the Department of Writing, Rhetoric, and American Cultures (WRAC) and offers publication resources for the Michigan State University campus community and beyond, has won a 2021-2022 Creating Inclusive Excellence Grant (CEIG) to support three of its projects. CEIG funding is awarded to projects that aim to create a more inclusive educational and work environment for all. The Cube…
The College of Arts & Letters is pleased to honor the 2021 Faculty Award winners for their outstanding leadership, teaching, innovation, and community engagement. The six awards presented by the College recognize these impactful leaders for the work that they do to enhance curriculum and student experiences. 2021 Faculty Award Winners: Faculty Leadership Award – Dànielle Nicole DeVoss, Department of Writing,…
The highest national research award for foreign language education recently was awarded to the team of Xiaowan Zhang, MSU Ph.D. alumna in Second Language Studies; Paula Winke, Professor in MSU’s Department of Linguistics, Languages, and Cultures; and Shaunna Clark, Associate Professor at Texas A&M University, for their research paper, “Background Characteristics and Oral Proficiency Development Over Time in Lower-Division College…
College of Arts & Letters’ Assistant Professor of Linguistics Betsy Sneller was awarded a $99,908 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Digital Humanities Advancement Grant (DHAG) program for her project, “Building and Disseminating an App for Ethnographic Remote Audio Recording,” that will develop an open-source code to create a self-recording mobile app, which will be critical for…
In 1926, Dr. Carter G. Woodson, the father of Black Studies, initiated the first “Negro History Week,” which would evolve into Black History Month here in the United States in 1976. For many people, it is an important commemoration of the long-standing contributions of African Americans in this country.