Access Granted: Analysis of Undergraduate Student Perceptions and Experiences in an African American Studies Research Program at a Historically White Institution

• In Event: Dismantling Barriers: Perspectives, Learning, and Campus Climate

Abstract

The presence of a research program within an African American studies department represents a strong linkage between the academic mission and praxis. In the Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies, at the University of California, Los Angeles, one of the ways this research center carries out its mission is through the Bunche Fellows Program, a research initiative that funds undergraduate and graduate students to study the conditions of Black life. Through utilizing mixed methods evaluation data to examine the experiences of undergraduate fellows, the objective of this paper is to better understand the role of an African American studies research program in the development of its students and their higher education aspirations beyond the undergraduate level.

Authors

• Audrey Devost, University of California - Los Angeles

• Passion Faith Lord, University of California - Los Angeles

• Zeyna Faucette, University of California - Los Angeles

• Walter R. Allen, University of California - Los Angeles