Center for African and African American Studies

CU Boulder’s Chancellor has demonstrated the campus’s commitment to supporting the CAAAS by pledging a 1:1 match up to $1 Million. 

The mission of the Center for African and African American Studies (CAAAS) is to research, promote, preserve, interpret, and disseminate knowledge about the histories, cultures, and arts of Africans, African Americans, and the wider world of the African diaspora. With three major program areas (1) research; (2) visual and performing arts; and (3) student services, it is simultaneously a research center, cultural arts center, and student services center. 

The Center for African and African American Studies is a co-curricular and community-building space where students, staff, faculty, alumni, artists, activists, allies, and community members come together to study the historical, cultural, spiritual, sociopolitical, economic, and artistic experiences of Africans, African Americans, and the African diaspora critically and systematically. The Center will advance CU’s goal of excellence in research, creative work, teaching, and service by providing a locus around which African and African American Studies innovations and achievements can be showcased and shared with students, faculty, and the public. 

The CAAAS challenges all CU students, staff, and faculty members to critically assess their roles and responsibilities as global citizens and to consciously advocate for a diverse, equitable, and inclusive campus, community, and society.