Welcome to the 2026-27 academic year. I hope the summer provided opportunities for renewal, productive work, meaningful engagement, and time with family and friends.

As we begin Fall 2026, the African Studies Center (ASC) enters the year with both realism and renewed purpose. The past year brought significant adjustment and stabilization. Internal budget pressures, disruptions to longstanding federal support for international and area studies, and a rapidly changing geopolitical, immigration, visa, and travel environment affected many aspects of our work. Yet these challenges have also sharpened our priorities and reinforced the importance of sustaining the extraordinary Africa expertise, relationships, programs, and institutional capacity that MSU has built over decades.

We are now pivoting from stabilization to strategic growth. Our focus is to protect essential Center functions while diversifying resources, strengthening support for faculty and students, deepening collaboration across MSU, and positioning ASC to respond to the major intellectual, demographic, technological, environmental, economic, and geopolitical transformations shaping Africa and the world.

Central to this work are our core faculty and academic staff. ASC supports Africa-related research, teaching, curriculum development, partnerships, student mentoring, conference and research travel, visiting scholars and speakers, African language learning, and interdisciplinary collaboration. We are also working closely with AAP, the Tanzania Partnership Program, Afrobarometer, the Institute of Ubuntu Thought and Practice, and partners across MSU to better align expertise, resources, and opportunities.

As you explore the speakers, events, and opportunities highlighted in this newsletter, please engage with ASC by nominating outstanding speakers, sharing exciting Africa-related work, promoting African languages, and seeking supportfor partnerships, courses, education abroad, conference travel, and student research. While our resources are modest, we aim to catalyze new initiatives, leverage opportunities across MSU, and strengthen our collective competitiveness for major external funding and partnerships.

This year, we are also refining the rhythm of longstanding programs such as Eye on Africa and African Tea Times, with greater emphasis on quality, participation, intellectual impact, and meaningful connection. Our goal is for ASC to be not only a provider of programs but also a platform through which faculty find collaborators, develop new ideas, support students, build partnerships, and pursue ambitious work.

On behalf of ASC, I extend a special welcome to new MSU faculty whose scholarship, teaching, or engagement involves Africa and its diasporas. Please contact us or encourage them to do so early. We want to help them navigate MSU's Africa-related ecosystem, connect with colleagues and partners, access relevant resources, and become part of our intellectual community. I also encourage eligible faculty who are not yet affiliated with ASC to consider joining us here. 

As we welcome new colleagues, we also recognize faculty and staff who retired or left MSU during the past year. We thank them for their scholarship, service, mentorship, and partnerships, and we wish them well in their next chapters. We likewise congratulate colleagues who received promotions or assumed new leadership roles and wish them continued success.

Above all, this is a moment to reconnect. I encourage you to renew existing collaborations, build new ones, mentor students, participate in ASC programs, including the upcoming Core Faculty Meeting, bring forward bold ideas, and help shape what comes next. The circumstances around us have changed, but MSU's depth of expertise and commitment to Africa have not.

We look forward to working with you toward a year of outstanding scholarship, purposeful partnerships, student opportunity, and renewed Africa engagement across MSU and with partners around the world.

Warm regards,

Leo Zulu 
Director, African Studies Center

September 2026