African-American Cultural Center Leadership Change

Dear Faculty, Staff and Students,

Dr. Lori D. Barcliff Baptista, director of the African-American Cultural Center (AACC) at UIC, will resign her position on June 30, 2018, to take a position at Northwestern University. For almost 7 years, Dr. Baptista has focused the Center’s support of the academic and diversity missions of UIC through research, teaching, and social practice arts programs that relate African-American and Diaspora traditions, creative practices and history to broader frameworks of thought, feeling and action. Among her many contributions, Dr. Baptista restructured the Center’s Gallery program to better articulate how university faculty and K-12 educators might access the Center as a practice based curricular resource, and she mapped the Center’s arts practice to bridge academic and student affairs priorities. We would like to thank Dr. Baptista for her outstanding service as director of the AACC.

Dr. Cynthia Blair, associate professor in the Department of African American Studies and the Department of History, will serve as interim director of the Center. Her research engages the fields of race, gender, sexuality, labor, migration, and performance. Dr. Blair will continue the Center’s work of community engagement, creative program development, and innovative and responsive student support. A search for a permanent director will begin soon.

Sincerely,

Susan Poser
Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs

Amalia Pallares
Associate Chancellor and Vice Provost for Diversity

For more information, please contact:
Kelcie Gauen
kgauen3@uic.edu