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2024 Black Star Film Festival

Hello AAFSA Family,

We invite you to check out the 2024 Black Star Film Festival, August 1 - August 4, 2024. The festival will be held in person in Philadelphia and virtually.

View the Schedule: https://watch.blackstarfest.org/blackstarfest

World Premier of *The Whites of Our Eyes" on August 4th, a short documentary film that follows Dr. Yaba Blay as she returns to her familial homeland of Ghana to explore the relationships between beauty, bodies, and b/Blackness. In addition to recreating the groundbreaking Clark Doll Test among school children, the film follows a young hustler as he prepares for his community's annual harvest festival by bleaching his skin. Amidst the ghost of colonialism and the gods of whiteness, "The Whites of Our Eyes" questions ideas and ideals of beauty in Ghana within the beauty of Ghana.

Tickets can be purchased at: https://www.blackstarfest.org/festival/passes/

All individual tickets can be purchased via blackstarfest.org/tickets. The cost is $7.50 per ticket for virtual screenings and $18 for in-person screenings.
You can access your purchased tickets by logging in and navigating to My Schedule or My Account (they will also be emailed to you). Each screening ticket will have a corresponding QR code that can be displayed on those pages. $175 gets patrons access to all virtual screenings.

Most films at the festival will be available to stream online globally unless otherwise noted.

Welcome Back, AAFSA!

The AAFSA E-Board welcomes our returning and new members back for the Fall 2023 semester!

We are planning to host professional development and self-care events, in-person gatherings, and collaborations with other university departments and affinity groups.

We always look forward to hearing ideas and feedback from our members, so please do not hesitate to contact us at

Warmly,
African American Faculty and Staff E-Board

President: James Walker
Pronouns: He | Him | His
Student Welfare Specialist, Department of Residential Life
Campus: Storrs

Vice President: Joshua Brown
Pronouns: He | Him | His
Program Administrator and Director of ScHOLA2RS House, Office of Learning Communities
Campus: Storrs

Treasurer: Phara Bayonne
Pronouns: She | Her | Hers
Stamford Campus Library Director, UConn Library
Campus: Stamford

Secretary: Chay Reed
Pronouns: she | her | they | y’all
Access Services Coordinator, UConn Library
Campus: Avery Point

Welcome Back Fall 2016!

Welcome back AAFSA!

We hope that you all enjoyed your summer. We have an exciting semester planned for you all. We have mixers, community service and fundraiser events in store for you. Please see below for our upcoming events, meetings dates and guest speakers. As always, our meetings will take place in the African American Cultural Center from noon- 1:30pm. Dues are $20 a year (cash, check, credit/debit accepted). All dues go towards our scholarship fund.

Also, on September 9;4:30pm at the Nathan Hale we will be hosting our Welcome Back Mixer.

Best,
AAFSA E-Board

 

 

Welcome Back from the AAFSA!

Hello African American Faculty, Staff and Friends-

Welcome back!

As, the newly elected E-board of the African American Faculty and Staff Association (AAFSA), it’s our pleasure to welcome you to UConn for another academic year!

AAFSA has a proud history of serving the entire University Community with a focus on providing a support network and a host of resources for African and African American faculty, staff, students and supporters. We are committed to promoting academic excellence and mentoring for our African-American students. In addition to our monthly meetings, we also host a number of special events throughout the year to provide and promote camaraderie.

Our first meeting of the year will be September 15, 2015 from 12:00 -1:30pm in the African American Cultural Center (Lunch provided). Grab a bite to eat, meet new people, and learn about the benefits of joining AAFSA. We hope to see all of you there.

Also, our first mixer will be on September 17, 2015 from 4:00-6:00pm in the Benton Museum. This event is a collaboration with Graduate Students of Color Association (GSCA). Be sure to RSVP below.

RSVP
September 15, 12:00 -1:30pm (Monthly Meeting) – http://goo.gl/forms/gbDzLrAzVZ

September 17, 2015 (Welcome Back Mixer) – http://goo.gl/forms/vlqM81fy0H

Again, welcome on behalf of the African American Faculty and Staff Association. We hope to see you all at our events this fall.

Warmly,
African American Faculty and Staff E-Board

Charmane Thurmand
Graduate Diversity Officer
President

Rowena Grainger, PhD
Graduate Fellowship Officer
Vice President

Veronica Cook
Program Director at University of Connecticut’s Supplier Diversity Program
Secretary

Amanda Cannada
Program Assistant, Africana Studies Institute
Treasurer

Willena K. Price, PhD
Director African American Cultural Center
Adjunct Professor

Andre Lindsey
Doctoral Student- Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences
Graduate Student Representative

On Campus Climate

December 14, 2014

 

Dear AAFSA Members and Friends,

We write to address you during a sobering time in our campus community.  Our initial plan was to invite you to join us for a celebration of “Thanks and Appreciation” for our faculty, graduates, and staff, as we approach the Thanksgiving holiday.  This “celebration” and announcement, however, comes with a poignant reminder about the importance of maintaining  a campus community for which we all can embrace as welcoming, inclusive, respectful, and communal.   In light of recent incidents affecting members of our University community, it is important for us to reflect, discuss, and challenge ourselves to define, embrace, and live according to communal standards that we deem salient and critical for our community’s well-being.  We can not “celebrate one another,” without accounting for that which is celebratory and for that which must be an aspiration for us to celebrate.  Therefore, the tenor of our “celebration” and thanks comes with yet an additional purpose to remind ourselves of how our association facilitates a vision for community, with a special interest in addressing matters of concern, as they affect Black people on our campus.

We invite you to join us in a community discussion about our campus climate on Wednesday, November 19, 2014 (12-1:30PM in the African American Cultural Center, Storrs Campus).  As we acknowledge our thanks for community members and their contributions to our University, we would be remiss not to account for the “health” of our community and our community members.  Therefore, we appreciate your joining us for a conversation about our association and campus community.

Our association has the explicit objectives to promote the betterment of our community by the following objectives, as they are noted in our Constitution, and as they have had historic and contemporary importance in facilitating a diverse and inclusive environment at our University:

To facilitate, as completely and as meaningfully as possible, the educational and work experiences of faculty, staff and students of UConn.
To encourage the recruitment, interviewing, subsequent hiring, and retention and professional development of Black faculty and staff members. Must make this known to the upper echelon.
To influence the recruitment, retention, and educational development of Black students on the main campus and at the branch campuses of the University of Connecticut.
To influence the development and to maintain relevant academic programming in the area of education for black students specifically, and educational programming in general.
To develop mechanisms for increasing the mutual responsibility of Black people to Black people, which is in addition to normal responsibilities of members of UConn staff.
To influence and facilitate the coordination and cooperative financing, when appropriate, of relevant socio-cultural programs sponsored by various groups (students, non-academic, etc)
To foster better relationships among Africans, African Americans, Third World people and all other members of the University Community and the surrounding committees.

We invite you to reflect upon these objectives and join us for a conversation about what they mean for our association, its members and friends, and our larger campus community.  Again, join us for our discussion and “Thanks and Appreciation” meeting on Wednesday, November 19, 2014.  Lunch will be served.

Regards,

African American Faculty and Staff Association (AAFSA)

Helena Danielle Green awarded AAFSA Book Scholarship

Helena Danielle Green, a doctoral student in Marriage and Family Therapy, has been awarded the African American Faculty and Staff Book Scholarship for 2014.  Helena received $200 to be used for books at the UConn Co-op.  Congratulations to Helena!   We extend our thanks to all who applied for the scholarship.  We would also like to thank the Scholarship Committee.  Applications for the 2015 Book Scholarship award will be available in the Spring.  Contact anyone on the E-board for more information.
Nunnaly and Green