Ronald Stephens has been to Garden of the Gods five times in the month and a half since he moved to Denver. The mountains of Colorado are a far cry from the flat lands of western Michigan—where Stephens taught at Grand Valley State College—and Stephens hopes to embrace them. "I want to try skiing, fishing, mountain biking, hiking and camping," Stephens says, with the sort of enthusiasm that seems to characterize his approach to life and work.

Stephens was recruited last spring to chair Metro State's African American Studies Department. He's a "20th-century African Americanist," whose research and teaching has focused on the social movements, social and political thought and popular culture of African Americans in the last century. "I was drawn to the position at Metro," Stephens said, "particularly by the chance to shape and mold the future of the department."

He cites visiting instructor Jacquelyn Benton's expertise in African American literature, among others, and has had exploratory discussions with different experts to round out the department. He recently received a visitor from a university in Ghana to discuss the possibility of institutional partnerships and cultural exchange programs. He hopes to foster relationships with the local community as well, and has made initial contacts with the African American Leadership Institute and the Black American West Museum.

"My goal is for Metro's to be the best undergraduate African American studies department in the country," says Stephens.

At Grand Valley State University, where Stephens was coordinator of the African American Studies Department, he instituted a program in which he led groups of students in fieldwork to research the history of Idlewild, an African American resort of the early twentieth century known as a "Black Eden" for the cultural, intellectual and recreational haven it provided to African American families. Stephens has written books on Idlewild and hopes to incorporate this knowledge base and experience into his work at Metro State.

After receiving his doctorate at Temple University in Philadelphia, Stephens taught at West Shore Community College in Scottville, Arizona, which is where he first became aware of and interested in the Idlewild community. He then taught at Wayne State University for two years, followed by a six-year stint at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln and then to Grand Valley State.

This semester Stephens is teaching "Social Movements and the Black Experience" and team teaching a section in the introductory course in African American studies.