Dr. Alicia Fontnette, assistant professor at the University of Delaware, has been named executive director of the National Council for Black Studies. As part of her appointment, the department of Africana studies at UD will serve as the organization’s new headquarters.
The National Council for Black Studies (NCBS), promotes academic excellence and programming in the discipline of Black studies. The organization hosts an annual conference attended by hundreds of academic professionals from across the country.
Valerie Grim, president of the National Council for Black Studies, commended Delaware’s department of Africana studies as “a first-rate department whose commitment to the study of African descended peoples is invigorating and engaging.”
In partnership with Fontnette and her colleagues at the University of Delaware, the National Council for Black Studies plans to expand its online platform, increase programming, and build interdisciplinary partnerships between the two organizations.
Dr. Fontnette is leading the effort to organize chapters for the National Council for Black Studies Honor Society, starting with establishing a chapter at the University of Delaware.
Professor Fontnette says her collaboration with the National Council for Black Studies will put the University of Delaware “at the center of Africana scholarship,” and that “it benefits the National Council for Black Studies to be in partnership with an R1 research university.”
Dr. Fontnette received her bachelor’s degree from Dillard University in New Orleans, where she studied European history and British Literature. She received her master’s degree in African and African-American studies, as well as her Ph.D. in humanities, Africana women’s studies, and English from Clark Atlanta University.
Prior to her current role with the University of Delaware, she taught at Spelman College in Atlanta. Dr. Fontnette’s research interests include Black feminist theory, Black American literature, and the African novel.
The National Council for Black Studies (NCBS) was established in 1975, when African American scholars came together to formalize the study of the African World experience, as well as expand and strengthen academic units and community programs devoted to this endeavor.
NCBS was formed out of the substantial need for a national stabilizing force in the developing discipline of Africana/Black Studies. The roots of NCBS run deep in the evolutionary growth of the discipline given that the organization was formed only seven years after the establishment of the first Black Studies Program in the United States.
Today, the purpose of the NCBS is multidimensional and the scope of its functioning is quite broad. As an organization created and sustained primarily by students and their teachers, NCBS is committed to academic excellence and social responsibility.
