New Director for African American Studies
Professor Stephanie Mitchem was named the new Director of the African American Studies Program in July 2008. She succeeds Dr. Cleveland Sellers who has accepted a position as the new president of Voorhees College of Denmark.
The African American Program at USC is at an exciting juncture in its evolution, as new faculty and staff are being hired, enrollments are growing, and various opportunities for research and collaboration are emerging.
Professor Mitchem brings to her role as Director of African American Studies her connections with her home department, Religious Studies, and her dual appointment with the Women's Studies Program.
In her previous appointment at the University of Detroit Mercy, she at various times directed the Women's Studies program and the African American Studies Program. She is in her fourth year here at the University of South Carolina
and is having a remarkable career. At the most recent annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion a special session was devoted to her work. She is one of the leading interpreters of African American women in theology and religion, a field of theology she has helped to create.
She has served on the board of the Sexual Trauma Services of the Midlands and the South Carolina Humanities Council as well as the Humanities Out Loud Speaker Bureau. She serves on the USC Press Committee and the editorial board of the Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion and as a contributing editor of the journal Cross Currents since 2000.
Cleveland Sellers, New President of Voorhees
Dr. Sellers has moved on from his post as the former Director of African American Studies at USC to become the president of Voorhees College, a small, private liberal arts school in Denmark, SC. Voorhees was founded in 1897 by an African-American woman, Elizabeth Evelyn Wright, a former student of famed black educator Booker T. Washington.
Cleveland Sellers grew up not far from the Voorhees campus; his high school was on the college's campus. For Sellers, the move is the end of a long commute from his Denmark home to Columbia and back. Voorhees is less than a five-minute drive from his home. Figuratively - and literally - he is home again.
Sellers, an S.C. civil rights icon is invigorated by the challenges at Voorhees. Voorhees had a difficult year last year. Enrollment has dipped in recent years, making for tight budgetary times. Sellers is eager to show it off, eager for others to see what he sees in its open campus and historic buildings.
Our thanks to State Newspaper
photographer, Jeff Blake, for the photo and
senior writer, Wayne Washington, for the news of Dr. Sellers.
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