After 38 years at Cornell, Africana professor Robert L. Harris Jr. is retiring, and his former graduate students and Cornell colleagues have organized a conference in his honor, "Historiography and African-American Intellectual History," to be held at the Africana Studies and Research Center April 5-6.

"Bob's uncommon combination of active scholar, committed teacher and great and conscientious citizen has enabled him to pursue new paths of exploration and analysis in the research and teaching of African-American history," said conference organizer Salah Hassan, the Goldwin Smith Professor of African and African Diaspora Art History and Visual Culture. Scot Brown, Harris' former doctoral student at Cornell and currently a professor of history at University of California, Los Angeles, described his mentor as "among the most engaged scholars of his generation in the field of African-American history, and his scholarly writings and remarkable influence have shaped its development, historiography and teaching philosophy."

Harris' research focuses on how African-Americans have come to their current cultural, socioeconomic and political position in the United States; coped with enslavement, segregation, discrimination and poverty; and developed a rich heritage that has challenged and improved the country. He is currently working on a biography of educator and diplomat Jerome Heartwell "Brud" Holland '39 (a two-time All-American football star at Cornell).

Gerard Aching, director of Africana and professor of Romance studies, described Harris as a "passionate, caring teacher and a highly respected mentor" with an admirably extensive record of advising at the graduate and undergraduate levels.

Under Harris' leadership as director of the Africana Studies and Research Center from 1986 to 1991 (he served again 2010-12), the center became the first black studies department or program in the country to administer a National Resource Center (NRC) in African Studies for the U.S. Department of Education's Title VI Program in Area Studies. This resulted in expanding the faculty in Africana studies, broadening the connection with the larger campus, teaching of several African languages and creating a certificate in African studies for undergraduates in any Cornell college.

As director, Harris also brought two major grants to Cornell from the Rockefeller and the Ford foundations that supported the African and African Diaspora Visiting Scholars Program and the African Cultural Studies Fellowships, respectively. These grants brought a host of scholars and conferences to Cornell..

Harris served as vice provost for diversity and faculty development from 2000 to 2008. Key programs and initiatives established during Harris' tenure include helping to craft Cornell's Statement on Diversity and Inclusiveness, "Open Doors, Open Hearts and Open Minds"; the Provost's Academic Diversity Postdoctoral Fellowship Program, resulting in the hiring of minority scholars as tenure-track faculty; an annual list of open faculty searches to aid greater collaboration across disciplines and dual-career placement; the Upstate New York Higher Education Recruitment Consortium; and the National Science Foundation-funded CU-ADVANCE Center office, which named its Advancements in Science annual lecture series in his honor.

Among other honors and awards, Harris received the Perkins Prize for Interracial Understanding in 2000, the 2003 Carter G. Woodson Scholars Medallion for distinguished work in the field of African-American life and history, and the Cook Award for Commitment to Women's Issues at Cornell in 2008. The Multicultural Greek Letter Council (MGLC) of Cornell's Office of Fraternity and Sorority Affairs annually presents the Robert L. Harris Jr. Outstanding MGLC Leader Award, named in his honor. Harris is also past president of the Association for the Study of Afro-American Life and History.

The author of more than 50 journal articles and book chapters, Harris' most recent book is "The Columbia Guide to African American History Since 1939" (Columbia University Press, 2006), with Rosalyn Terborg-Penn.

Linda B. Glaser is staff writer for the College of Arts and Sciences.