A+CR Announces Major Partnership Initiative with the African Diaspora Consortium!!

Diaspora may be a new term for many people. It’s not used very often in ordinary conversation, writing, on television, or on social media. The term comes from an ancient Greek word meaning “to scatter about.” The phrase “African Diaspora” refers to the communities and cultures throughout the world that have resulted by descent from the movement in historic times of peoples from Africa, predominantly to the Americas and among other areas around the globe in what scholars have identified 4 migratory periods dating back some 50,000 years.

The African diaspora has had a considerable impact on global culture in the fields of science and medicine, music and popular culture. The impact of the African Diaspora on Europe and the Americas defies measurement. Simply put, as a result of this movement, Africa’s best and brightest ended up leaving, contributing their talents and abilities to cultures distant from their own. The cultures absorbing the people of the African Diaspora have gains that are impossible to specifically quantify.

Starting in the 2017-18 school year, Mr. Cary Hurt, social studies teacher at Virgil Grissom High School, will be engaging his AP Capstone Seminar students on an examination of the many themes, perspectives, events, and impact of the African Diaspora. Grissom High School is the only school in the state of Alabama and one of only three locations across the entire United States to offer the course. The other two schools are Lusher Charter School located in New Orleans, Louisiana, and Medgar Evers College Preparatory School in Brooklyn, New York.

The African Diaspora AP Capstone Seminar is the first African related topic in The College Board’s portfolio of courses. AP Capstone is a program developed by the College Board. It consists of a two-year high school program and two courses: the AP Seminar and the AP Research courses. In the Seminar course, students are given an introduction to conducting independent analysis of complex ideas across various disciplines. It involves reading and understanding advanced source material in the form of texts and other media. Students are also expected to synthesize information from different sources and formulate research questions based on these source materials. They further elaborate on these ideas through essays, oral presentations, and team projects. The goal of the class is to provide students with the tools to evaluate information accurately and make compelling, evidence-based arguments. Students who successfully complete the program and obtain scores of 3 or higher on at least four other AP exams receive either an AP Capstone Diploma or an AP Capstone Certificate.

A+ College Ready is the first organization of its kind in the United States to announce its support and endorsement of the African Diaspora AP Capstone Seminar. It is partnering with the University of Alabama, Notre Dame University, Tulane University, Columbia University, and the African Diaspora Consortium.

This new initiative is a major project of the African Diaspora Consortium (ADC). Their mission is to impact positively the educational, economic, and artistic outcomes and opportunities of Black populations across the African Diaspora. Led by Dr. Kassie Freeman, a native and current resident of Alabama, the ADC is strongly committed to the value of partnership. According to Dr. Freeman, “Our strongly held belief is that in true partnership, with student success as the goal, all partners have a voice that will be recognized and valued. In our three-way partnership (ADC, school, and university), all partners are equal. In this model, students are assured of not only being successful but also enjoying and being excited by new content, while enhancing skills. That philosophy has defined all of the initiatives of ADC and guided the development of our AP Capstone Seminar and will define ADC’s AP Capstone Seminar implementation strategies.”

A+ College Ready is honored and privileged to be an active participant in this partnership.

For more information about the College Board’s Capstone Program, click on the link below.

https://advancesinap.collegeboard.org/ap-capstone

For more information about the ADC and the African Diaspora, click on the link below:

http://adcexchange.org/

For more information about A+ College Ready and its partnership with Grissom High School and the ADC project, contact Dale Fleury at [email protected]