SUNY Old Westbury President Timothy E. Sams will present the University’s first-ever Presidential Medal later this month to Molefi Kete Asante, who today is a professor in the Department of Africology at Temple University, the president of the Molefi Kete Asante Institute for Afrocentric Studies, and most recently named a fellow of the African Academy of Sciences.
Being inaugurated as part of the campus’ continuing celebration of its 60th Anniversary, the Presidential Medal is designed to recognize visionaries and leaders who epitomize the campus’ mission and vision as an institution dedicated to excellence, equity and service.
The presentation of the first SUNY Old Westbury Presidential Medal to Dr. Asante will take place on April 29 at 1:30 p.m. in the Duane L. Jones Recital Hall in the Campus Center.
He has spent a lifetime breaking new ground by challenging our understanding of national and global history and society and in the process changing the world for the better...”
-- Timothy E. Sams, SUNY Old Westbury President
“Recipients of this medal are those people who stand apart because they are transcendent and transformational,” said Sams. “They do not merely make progress in their fields. They break through longstanding barriers using fresh insight to create entirely new lines of inquiry that challenge our preconceived notions about the world around us. Dr. Asante is such an exceptional, transformational individual.”
The creator of the first Black Studies program in the United States at Temple University, Asante developed the philosophical framework of Afrocentricity as a lens to reestablish the cultural identity and heritage of African Americans who have historically faced disconnection from their roots due to systemic oppression faced across history.
He is a noted author with more than 500 articles and 104 books across his more than 50-year career, including “African American History,” one of the only high school textbooks written by an American scholar that provides students with an African-centered perspective on history.
Asante was also the founding editor of the Journal of Black Studies, a peer-reviewed publication published for the last half of a century that serves as a leading source for dynamic, innovative, and creative research on the Black experience.
“He has spent a lifetime breaking new ground by challenging our understanding of national and global history and society and in the process changing the world for the better,” said Sams, who studied under Asante while earning his Ph.D. in African American Studies at Temple. “Without individuals like Dr. Asante building the bedrock of our understanding of social justice, institutions like ours would simply not be possible.”
Celebrating 60 years since its charter, SUNY Old Westbury is today among the most diverse campuses in America recognized for its success in enhancing the social mobility of its students. Through its nearly 70 undergraduate and graduate programs, Old Westbury prepares students for the careers and lives they see for themselves while cultivating critical thinking, empathy, creativity and intercultural understanding, alongside a passion for learning and a commitment to building a more just and sustainable world.