Tiffany Patterson is an Associate Professor of African American and Diaspora Studies and a professor of history at Vanderbilt University, but before she headed to Tennessee, Patterson lead the African and African American Studies Department at Luther College in Decorah, Iowa.
On Thursday, Patterson will return to Luther for the first time since she left her position at the college and will give the spring convocation address as part of the 50th anniversary of the Black Student Union at Luther.
During her tenure at Luther, Patterson fought to diversify department course offerings to include classes such as African political economy, social and political history of African American women, and comparative literature of African peoples. She was also an intrical part of a push to change the department’s name from Black Studies to African and African American Studies.
While Patterson’s work at Luther lives on, she says it wasn’t always easy to work at a predominantly white college, in a predominantly white community, particularly as the academic field of African and African American studies fought for recognition in a scholarly context at colleges and universities across the country.
“I was a single, black woman at a campus with one black woman professor and one black male professor,” she says. “There were no African American professors in any other department at that time.”
Since her time at Luther, Patterson has authored or co-authored several academic texts, and served as an Associate Editor of the 16 volume series "Black Women in United States History." She is currently working on a book entitled “Heart in Darkness: Zora Neale Hurston in Haiti.”
Tiffany Patterson’s lecture, “Black Students and the Creation of Black Studies” will take place on Thursday, February 7 at Luther College and will be open to the public.
