CLUBS • AWARDS • ORGANIZATIONS • DISCIPLINARY HONORS
CONFERENCES • INTERNSHIPS • TRAVEL OPPORTUNITIES
AADS Club
The African American & African Diaspora Studies club is a student club intended to promote interest, positive dialogue, and community involvement within the African American & African Diaspora Studies Program and the African American community on the campus of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Students of all majors are welcomed.
Ambassadors Program
The AADS Ambassadors Program gives students the opportunity to pair their academic knowledge with professional development. The purpose of the AADS Ambassadors Program is to provide majors who are enthusiastic about African American and African Diaspora Studies to communicate their pride with others, to meet professionals, and to receive mentoring from the Program’s Director.
Study Abroad
AADS majors are encouraged to participate in a Study Abroad program, especially in Africa and Latin America. AADS has worked with the Global Engagement Office to establish a Study Abroad Exchange with the University of Botswana in Gaborone, Botswana; Students and instructors have traveled to Tanzania;
CACE Conference
Our annual conference brings national and international speakers and community partners, and showcases student and alumni participation. Keynote speakers have included Annette Gordon-Reed, bell hooks, Michael Eric Dyson, Cornel West, and Lenora Fulani.
Honors College
Lloyd International Honors College provides motivated, high achieving undergraduate students in all fields of study with an enhanced education that has an international focus. LIHC is an intellectually engaged community devoted to fostering critical thinking, global awareness, and strong preparation for professional, civic, and personal pursuits to help students continue to learn, develop, and grow.
Career Preparation
The National Council for Black Studies maintains a list of Africana Studies Graduate Programs at the master’s and doctoral levels. Check with the current program director of AADS for more information.
Student Awards represent the hearts and minds of AADS: devoted educators, artists, authors, and community and communal minded individuals recognized as advocates, colleagues and friends. These awards are granted yearly on a competitive basis, and acknowledge the new generation of AADS artists, activists, and scholars made every day in our classes and in the community.
Award recipients are announced at the Spring AADS Graduation Ceremony.
Learn more about the awards below:
N. Frank Woods, Jr. Award for Creative Excellence
N. Frank Woods, Jr., longtime director of African American Studies at UNC Greensboro, a visual artist and art historian with an MFA from UNCG, was instrumental in developing the AADS curriculum, leading the Program, and teaching thousands of undergraduate students in AADS and across the university for a span of over thirty years, until his retirement in 2020. A painter and sculptor with a doctorate in art history, Dr. Woods is a scholar of the creative legacy of African American artists and souls, and a practitioner of artistic expression himself. This award honors Dr. Woods’s advancement of creative excellence in a lifetime of advancing awareness of African American legacies in the creative arts. Students engaged in a broad range of creative work addressing African American life are eligible to apply.
Lorenzo “Logie” Meachum Award for Performance
Lorenzo “Logie” Meachum (September 21, 1952- December 29, 2018) was a blues musician, storyteller, UNC Greensboro alumnus, community leader, and a former lecturer in UNCG’s Department of African American and African Diaspora Studies. A Greensboro native, Meachum helped start the Piedmont Blues Preservation Society and was a recipient of the Keeping Blues Alive Award. He also received the O. Henry Lifetime Achievement Award for his commitment to arts in the Triad. He played a key role in recruiting the National Folk Festival to Greensboro 2015-2017. Meachum is remembered in Greensboro as a generous collaborator, wise community leader, and a captivating musician and storyteller.
The Lorenzo “Logie” Meachum Award for Performance is intended for an AADS student who has produced scholarly work, performance(s), or an educational performance(s), dedicated to African American performative traditions such as the blues or other musical forms, storytelling, or other expressive performative arts that are part of the African American cultural tradition.
Angela Rhone Award for Education and Social Justice
Dr. Angela Rhone, Professor of Teacher Education at Florida Atlantic University, is an accomplished teaching professional with more than 20 years of exemplary experience. She earned her doctorate in Education from UNC Greensboro’s Teaching and Curriculum Program. In 1989, she developed and taught two foundational courses in African American Studies, courses which we still teach today: Introduction to African American Studies and Blacks in American Society. A lifelong advocate of continued learning and advancement, Dr. Rhone’s early contribution to the curriculum of what is now the Program in African American and African Diasporic Culture and Experiences at UNC Greensboro is regarded as the cornerstone of who we are today. Dr. Rhone’s gift for advancing the love of learning in others is coupled with her own zest for knowledge as activism. The Angela Rhone Award honors a community-engaged student who actively pursues social change, educational advancement, and/ or other important rites of passage for Africana peoples.
Michael Cauthen Award for Understanding Race
Michael Cauthen, Senior Lecturer in AADS, is currently the longest-serving member of the program, having joined the faculty in 1996. He has taught thousands of students over the past twenty-five years, served on numerous college and program committees, and developed courses for the major, such as “Understanding Race” and “The African American Athlete.”
The Michael Cauthen Award for Understanding Race is granted to an AADS student who has produced a scholarly work or delivered a conference paper addressing the topic of race and racial formation through history or the social sciences in African American and/ or African Diaspora Studies.
AADS Student Awards are for AADS majors only. Students should submit documentation of their activities as sound recording, film/video clip, or writing on African American creative subjects (Woods, Jr. Award), performance and performance traditions (Meachum Award), education and/ or social justice activity (Rhone Award) or academic writing on an Africana subject (Cauthen Award) to aads@uncg.edu by April 15th of each calendar year.
Program Scholarship
Whitney “Whitty” Ransome Scholarship in African American and African Diaspora Studies
The Whitney “Whitty” Ransome Scholarship in African American and African Diaspora Studies was established in Fall 2013 with a gift from Ms. Whitty Ransome, a 1967 Woman’s College graduate, to support students majoring in African American and African Diaspora Studies. It provides a merit scholarship to full-time undergraduate African American and African Diaspora Studies majors with exemplary academic performance. Awards are made by the AADS Scholarships Committee.
Eligibility: Currently full-time enrolled undergraduates, in good standing; declared African American and African Diaspora Studies major; completion of at least 9 hours in the African American and African Diaspora Studies Program, and at least a 3.0 GPA. Financial need may be taken into consideration.
The African American and African Diaspora Studies Program of The University of North Carolina at Greensboro welcomes your application for a Whitney “Whitty” Ransome Scholarship in African American and African Diaspora Studies. The scholarship provides a merit scholarship to a full-time undergraduate African American and African Diaspora Studies major, in good standing, with exemplary academic performance in the African American and African Diaspora Studies Program.
Awards are made on the basis of eligibility requirements, past academic performance, essay responses to application prompts that explain what inspired the applicant to choose African American and African Diaspora Studies as a major; describe the impact the African American and African Diaspora Studies Program has had on the applicant’s education, and outline the applicant’s future academic plans. Applicants should ask a UNCG teaching faculty member, or staff member, or advisor who is familiar with your work to complete a letter of recommendation and return it to the African American and African Diaspora Studies Program aads@uncg.edu by the deadline.
Students apply through the Student Financial Aid Office S3 portal.
Please note: Applications will be processed through the financial aid office. If you are already a recipient of financial aid, the award may impact your total UNCG compensation package. The Ransome Scholar will be chosen by a committee and the recipients will be contacted by email in April.
Other Scholarship Opportunities
- UNCG Scholarships
- College Foundation of North Carolina
- Program Stipend for Study Abroad: Stipend of $100.00 or more given to students who are accepted to a UNCG Study Abroad Program. Once accepted, contact the AADS program director.
Internships give students the opportunity to expand their academic knowledge by engaging in practical, hands-on experience. The Program strongly encourages AADS majors and minors to become interns. Students will have the opportunity to work with AADS main office for event planning, networking, and promotion and learning design related techniques for marketing. Interested students will need to complete the prerequisite courses, interview with the current program director, and be selected by the director.
See below for current opportunities or contact aads@uncg.edu to discuss options, application, and enrollment.
492 Internship in African American Studies (1-6 credits)
Prerequisite Courses: ADS 201, 210; ADS 376, ENG 376 or 374; ADS 356, HIS 301 or 389
Prerequisite Courses for AADS minors: AADS 201, 210, and two AADS-related courses
Interns must show 40 on-site hours each semester for each semester hour of credit sought.
Other opportunities exist with local law firms, non-profit organizations, museums, and other local businesses providing practical experience at sites serving populations of people of African descent. Two semester meetings with Program Director. Students must complete 8 to 15 hours per week at site.
Guidelines & Expectations (form to complete is included)