“We’ve been wanting to find a way to do a program like this,” Magill said. “In my own department, we have slowly been trying to diversify the curriculum and trying to get more voices of different authors from different racial backgrounds. The fact that this took fire now, of course, given everything that’s going on in the world, it’s even more essential.”
Larissa Smith, Longwood’s provost, said the program was a product of “student interest as well as faculty recognizing that there was a need.”
“Those of us who have been engaged in teaching those courses have for a long time felt we needed something in our curriculum that would allow students to explore more broadly race and ethnic studies,” said Smith, a scholar of African American and Virginia history.