Event on May 29 honored the achievements of UCLA graduate and undergraduates centered on the study of Black life; vision of the BFP’s founder.
The Ralph J. Bunche Center at UCLA, originally founded in 1969 as the Center for Afro-American Studies, has been at the forefront to develop and strengthen African American Studies through multidisciplinary research and programs, expanding the knowledge of history, culture, and socio-political systems of people of African descent and investigating issues affecting the psychological, social, economic and political well-being of people of African descent.
Enhancing that mission is the Bunche Fellows Program (BFP), co-founded by UCLA Professor of Education Walter Allen, who envisioned a cohort of excellence among Black graduate and undergraduate students. On May 29, an event at the UCLA Luskin Center celebrated the fifth anniversary of the BFP and Allen’s retirement from the program, highlighting the achievements of what Lorrie Frasure, director of the Bunche Center calls, “… a home for rigorous research, bold ideas, and transformative engagement around the study of Black life.”
“The Bunche Fellows Program is one of the center’s signature and most impactful initiatives… more than an academic fellowship program,” said Frasure. “It is a premier pipeline for emerging scholars in the study of Black life … across disciplines from STEM to humanities to the social sciences to professional schools, It’s a place that supports the growth of our students, daring to imagine a better world through scholarship and service.”
UCLA Professors of Education Eddie R. Cole, Robert Cooper, and Tyrone Howard serve on the BFP faculty advisory committee; and Professor of Education Sandra Graham is an affiliated faculty member. In addition, Cooper is the faculty director of the Arthur Ashe Legacy Project within the BFP.
The event program included remarks by Professor Howard, Kelly Lytle-Hernandez, UCLA professor of history and African American studies; Ketema Paul and Courtney Thomas-Tobin, BFP faculty co-directors, BFP; Tabia Shawel, assistant director, UCLA Bunche Center, and Bunche Fellows Asha Fletcher, Khale Jackson, and Passion Lord.
Professor Lytle-Hernandez discussed the genesis of the BFP, which began as a goal in 2018, to be funded by the California state budget as a line item, with support of $15 million over the next several years to invest in faculty and their ability to support Black students.
“We would do so in ways that make the Bunche Center a collective enterprise built from the ground up from the Civil Rights Movement until now as an insurgent, inquisitive and skilled community of scholars, deeply engaged in the study of Black life and deeply committed to improving the conditions of Black life,” Lytle-Hernandez said.
Paul, who is a UCLA professor of integrative biology and physiology, as well as psychiatry and biobehavioral sciences, noted how the BFP replicates the HBCU experience.
“When you get on most of those campuses, there is an energy there that you don’t feel in most other places,” he said. “There’s a beauty in watching so many young Black students that represent the excellence that their forefathers expected from them [as they move] forward into the future.”
Professor Howard emphasized the importance of the BFP for Black faculty as well as students.
“One of our tasks as faculty members is to do all we can do in terms of teaching, mentoring, guiding, and supporting the next generation of doers and thinkers and scholars and change agents,” he said. “We do it with the highest levels of integrity and the utmost [commitment] to social change, economic change, educational change. But there’s something different when you do it in a manner where this work is committed to those who are just like you – who look like you, who think like you, who come from circumstances similar to yours.
“You make us better because you are a reminder to us of why we do this,” said Howard. “We do this because we had folks who supported us… who saw something in us that at times, we did not see in ourselves.”
Frasure commended Professor Allen’s work with the BFP, saying, “His vision … helped to create the foundation on which we build year after year.”
Professor Allen congratulated his colleagues who have worked for the last five years to bring the BFP into reality, and the Bunche Fellows cohort of students, commending their work and dedication.
“… These bright , talented, energetic, and inspiring BFP scholars embody our hope for a brighter tomorrow,” said Allen. “We can all live in that bright place with dignity and purpose. BFP embraces… scholarly excellence linked to an abiding social commitment. BFP scholars in this sense, join a long tradition. In that capacity, we see through you a refusal to let anyone or anything… deny what is your rightful place in this world.
“Our faith has been confirmed by giving these incredible students the opportunities to express their greatness within,” said Professor Allen.
Visit this link to learn more about the Bunche Fellows Program.