African studies at Northwestern University will enter a new phase of their history in September 1964, when Professor Gwendolen M. Carter takes up her post as director of the Program and Herskovits Professor of African Studies. The new appointment coincides with an expanding intellectual involvement of the faculty with the developing countries of the world, which have been somewhat neglected by scholarship, and the future goals of the Program are closely related to this wider academic development. First, however, a note on the background.