Dr. Andy DeRoche
Front Range Community College and CU Boulder
In my presentation I will discuss how I got to this point in my career and life. I grew up in a small town in Maine with no African Americans in my school, but ended up being extremely interested in African American history and culture, and also interested in U.S. relations with Africa, and in Africa itself (especially southern Africa). Talking about how this life and career have developed for me will help me explain how and what I teach, at the community college, at CU Boulder, and also for one year at the University of Zambia (on a Fulbright in 2005). The four teaching experiences I will briefly discuss will be teaching Ethnic Studies at Front Range Community College ( FRCC), teaching US history at the University of Zambia, teaching a course I developed on Race, US Foreign Relations, and Africa at CU Boulder, and teaching the history of US foreign relations at FRCC. In each of these very different teaching environments, race relations has been a key aspect of my subject matter. Furthermore, living in Longmont, Colorado with a black Zambian wife, two biracial children, and our niece whom we have adopted from Zambia, my personal life is a study in race relations. I actually try to incorporate insights from our life into my classes when relevant, and the students seem to appreciate that. I hope that by sharing the challenges that I have experienced in researching, teaching, and living a life of interracial relations, I will stimulate some useful discussion and make a solid contribution to our session.