Courses and Advising

Each semester the African Studies Center publishes a list of courses that are approved to count towards our programs. These courses are pre-approved for the African Studies Minor, African Studies Graduate Certificate or as the required area studies course for the academic year FLAS award. If you are a student at a school within the Boston Area Consortia (Boston College, Brandies, Tufts, and Hebrew College) you may cross-register at Boston University and get full course credit at your home university. For more information contact the Director of the African Language Program. If you are a student taking a course that includes a significant amount of African-related content and it is not listed on the approved list, then you may submit a petition for the course to count towards your degree program. If you are a faculty member who teaches a course with a significant amount of Africa-related content and you would like to have your class added to the approved list of courses, please email us at ascinfo@bu.edu to request that the course be added to the list.

Minor and Graduate Certificate Advisors

Students are faced each semester with a long list of choices when it comes to African studies courses at Boston University, and balancing personal interests with academic progress may be difficult. At the African Studies Center, Publications Editor Dr. Michael Diblasi acts as advisor for the Minor and the Graduate Certificate, and Director of the Language Program Dr. Zoliswa Mali acts as the advisor for the African Language Program. The advisors can help you to sort through competing ideas about what might be best for you and your career and to make a decision. The advisor can also provide some basic insights about the way the African Studies Center works in regards to academic planning. For example, students considering taking an African language course for the first time may be confused by the designation “ARR” or “Arranged” in the course catalog. By making courses “arranged” at the beginning of each semester it maximizes the flexibility of scheduling so students from outside the College of Arts & Sciences, and sometimes from other campuses, are able to make arrangements with the instructor.