Founded in 1981, the University of Virginia's Carter G. Woodson Institute for African-American and African Studies is named in honor of native Virginian Carter Godwin Woodson, known to many as 'the father of black history' (learn more about Carter G. Woodson). The Woodson's founding director, historian Armstead L. Robinson, launched the Institute with a two-fold mandate: (1) to enhance the research and teaching of African-American Studies in the schools and departments of the University of Virginia and (2) to establish an African-American Studies Research Center which would make important contributions to scholarship and learning at this major southern university.Since its inception under the banner of the Carter G. Woodson Institute, the Department of Africana Studies has promoted interdisciplinary and collaborative research and interpretation of the African and African-American experience in a global context. The Woodson Institute administers the undergraduate major and minor degrees in African-American and African Studies (AAS) as well as a minor in African Studies, which was initiated in 2007.Beyond the department proper, the Woodson functions as a research Institute. Among other activities, the Institute facilitates an internationally renowned two-year residential fellowship program. During this program, pre- and post-doctoral scholars from universities and colleges around the nation take up residence in the Fellows Annex in order to complete their scholarly projects in a rigorous, supportive, and interdisciplinary intellectual community. Selected through an intense international competition, Woodson fellows represent young scholars in the humanities and social sciences at the cutting edge of the Africana Studies field. Over the course of its twenty-five year history, the Institute has sponsored more than 180 emerging scholars whose work has appeared in numerous books and articles published by the foremost university presses and academic journals.