On WOI-AM radio, the African American Studies Program interim director said her goal is to help people understand African-American culture.

Valerie Grim, the interim director and a visiting professor in history, said many people have “mythical images and much erroneous information about” African-American culture. Grim was joined by Iowa State President Martin Jischke on WOI-AM’s “Talk of Iowa” on Thursday.

Grim said she will remain at ISU through 1998 to help develop the African American Studies Program. She said, “I want to leave this place believing that I have helped to build a program that will help students understand how to communicate with and become sensitive to people who aren’t like them.”

Jischke said exposure to diversity is a part of education today. “The study of the African-American experience in America is essential in understanding America today and in the future,” Jischke said.

Grim said the African American Studies Program is in a building process. She said the program is working on course development, and bringing in lecturers to expose ISU students to scholars of the African-American experience.

African-American studies programs evolved from the Civil Rights Movement of the ’60s and ’70s, Grim said.

“It has happened as a result of people saying, we need more representation in terms of faculty and curriculum,” she said.

People began to understand that they need to know more about each other, Grim said. As a result, many programs have been born, but some have recently fallen on hard times, she said.

“African American Studies at Iowa State is at a booming stage,” Grim said. The administration is doing a tremendous job getting the program started, she said.

Grim said there has been good white representation among both faculty and students in the African American Studies. The majority of the classes she has taught have been taken primarily by white students.