Slavery to Liberation: The African American Experience

One of the major challenges facing college students in recent years is the ever-rising
costs of assigned class textbooks. It is a challenge that African and African American
Studies (AFA) at Eastern Kentucky University (EKU) has sought to address. On August
26, 2016, AFA faculty met to discuss the textbook issue, as well as how to attract
students to the program, retain them, and improve the quality of instruction. At the end
of the meeting, AFA faculty first decided to replace the costly textbook assigned to
students in AFA 201: The African Experience with high-quality, open-access articles
available through EKU Libraries free of charge to students. Starting with the Spring
2017 semester, all AFA 201 faculty assign open-access articles to their students.
Second, AFA faculty decided to embark on the publication of an open-access edited
textbook and to make it available to students enrolled in AFA 202: The African American
Experience free of charge. Shortly after the meeting, a call for submissions was
released and proposals for chapter contributions came in from all over the world.

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