The annual Faculty Development Seminar (FDS) funded by the Fulbright-Hays program and jointly implemented by the Council of American Overseas Research Centers (CAORC) and the West African Research Center (WARC) aims to help US faculty in less-endowed higher education institutions such as the community colleges and some Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) to consolidate their knowledge of African issues and improve their research and teaching activities on Africa. The FDS program was temporarily interrupted for two years because of the Covid pandemic and only came back on the agenda in January 2023.

For eighteen days (January 8-26) a group of 15 faculty from various US universities and colleges were in Senegal:

1 – to attend a series of lectures under the umbrella theme of West Africa, Senegal and the Diaspora: Continuities and Transformations.

2 – The group led by Professor Mbye (Howard University) and Cinder Barnes (Montgomery College) also participated in a number of field trips in Dakar and in-country to further visualize local realities as they pertain to the environment, education, culture, development, health, religion etc….

The program was wrapped with a farewell dinner on Wednesday January 25^th before the group headed to the airport for their flight back to the US.