HISTORIAN REGINALD BUTLER CHOSEN TO HEAD U.VA.'S
 WOODSON INSTITUTE FOR AFRO-AMERICAN AND AFRICAN STUDIES

	CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va., June 15 -- University of Virginia
historian Reginald D. Butler has been named director of the
University's Carter G. Woodson Institute for Afro-American and
African Studies, Raymond J. Nelson, U.Va. Dean of Arts and Sciences,
announced today.
	Butler, a member of the U.Va. faculty since 1990, succeeds
Armstead Robinson as director of the internationally respected
program in African-American studies.  Robinson, the institute's
founding director, died last year.
	Butler, a scholar of early African-American history who has
worked closely with institute programs, was chosen following a
national search for a director.
	"He is an outstanding scholar who will carry the institute
forward in its mission, established by Armstead Robinson, to further
knowledge and understanding about the African American experience,
complex questions of race and ethnicity, and about Africa," Nelson
said. Butler's appointment is effective July 1.
	The Woodson Institute provides annual fellowships to and
attracts visiting scholars from around the world who are conducting
pre- and post-doctoral research in African-American and African
studies.  Affiliated with faculty in fields throughout the
University, the institute also coordinates the undergraduate
African-American and African studies program and sponsors frequent
public lectures and conferences as well as a scholarly publication
series in conjunction with the University Press of Virginia.  
	Butler, who received his B.A. from Western Washington State
University and master's and doctorate in history from Johns Hopkins
University, is the author of a forthcoming book about free blacks in
central Virginia in the 18th and 19th centuries.  He has been a Ford
Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow and Research Fellow of the Colonial
Williamsburg Foundation.
	At the Woodson Institute Butler will launch three related
projects: the Chesapeake Regional Seminar in Black Studies, a
program to begin in the summer of 1997 with support from the Ford
Foundation, to collaborate with faculty at historically black
colleges and other institutions in the region, by providing
seminars, workshops and information about new directions in research
and teaching of African-American studies; the Central Virginia
Social History Project, a group of area scholars examining race and
ethnicity in central Virginia from the 17th century to the early
20th century; and the Emerging Scholars Program, aimed at increasing
the number of minority Ph.D. candidates in history at U.Va.
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June 14, 1996
	For interviews or additional information, Reginald Butler
may be reached at (804) 924 6948.  Television reporters should
contact our TV News Office at (804) 924-7550.