MSU and Africa
We believe that the future of Africa will be shaped by its young people. We are also proud to be part of a global network of education institutions through The MasterCard Foundation Scholars Program. Our shared values for academic excellence, nurturing environments and programs relevant to growth sectors in Africa create great opportunities for the next generation of leaders who are committed to giving back and achieving positive social transformation in Africa.
MSU and Africa Quick Facts
- African alumni: 2,554
- African students (Fall 2011): 191
- Partnerships with African institutions: 24
- Study abroad programs in Africa: 29
- Africa Research Awards (2006-2011): $93 million
- Ph.D. degrees on Africa awarded annually 1982-2012: 16
MSU African Studies Resources
- The African Studies Center, a unit serving faculty and students from 59 MSU departments, is one of the leading world area studies centers in the United States. Designated as a U.S. National Resource Center for African Studies by the U.S. Department of Education under Title VI of the Higher Education Act, the Center produces a seamless web of opportunities for faculty and students to jointly engage Africa in and outside the classroom.
- MSU's Africana Library Collection, with two Ph.D. Africanist librarians, is a leading Africana collection in the United States and supports the university's research on Africa, as do the large collections of art and artifacts in the MSU Museum and MSU Kresge Art Museum. MSU has taken the lead in disseminating African information internationally through, among others, a number of websites on African film and video, online curriculum on South Africa, African higher education, and African academic journals online.
- African Online Digital Library is a portal to multimedia collections about Africa, and the history of its countries and peoples, developed by the African Studies Center and MATRIX: The Center for Humane, Arts, Letters and Social Sciences Online at MSU. The digital collections are managed in collaboration with MSU's African Studies and partner universities and cultural heritage organizations in Africa. Plans are underway to add digital tools in order to enable scholars to work with and add to these materials.
- MSU's outreach program on Africa is the largest in the nation, including programs for 75 universities and four-year colleges and 29 community and junior colleges, focused on how to improve teaching about Africa for undergraduate students. Outreach to school teachers, students, administrators, and board members includes resources such as Exploring Africa and South Africa: Overcoming Apartheid Building Democracy, two online secondary school curricula resources. Outreach to state and federal government and to legislators links Africanist scholarship to U.S. policy making on Africa, and these resources, as well as many others, are available to the general public, media, and business.
- Another area of emphasis has been MSU students' knowledge of African languages. With five African linguists, MSU offers approximately a dozen languages every year including Arabic, Chichewa, Hausa, Igbo, Kikongo, Swahili, Yoruba, Xhosa and Zulu. MSU's African Language Program is one of the leading programs in the nation aimed at improving African language instruction and creating a model for offering languages needed by scholars to conduct research in Africa.
- As a leader in study abroad programming, MSU offers great opportunities for students to learn about Africa with some 29 study abroad programs in Africa, more than any other U.S. university.
Learn more about MSU's African Resources at africa.isp.msu.edu
*Adobe Acrobat Reader 
is required to read PDF documents.
