A Record Semester (Fall 2025) for African American Literary Studies at SIUE

In fall 2025, our African American literary studies group at SIUE offered more courses than ever before, with 33 classes in a single semester.

To put that in perspective, our previous high was 12 courses in one semester, back in spring 2023.

So what changed?

Most notably, the university enrolled a record number of first-semester Black students, and 514 of those students took our introductory African American literature course. For the first time, we also paired that course with labs, significantly expanding our instructional capacity and support for students. 

Here’s what we offered: 14 sections of the first-semester African American literature course, 14 lab sections, an online African American literature survey, African American Women Writers, a 400-level African American literature course, a diversity and comic books course, and a graduate seminar in African American literature. In total, 12 instructors taught across these offerings.

Fall 2025 marked a new scale of reach for African American literary studies at SIUE.

Related:

• African American Literary Studies at SIUE