The Department of African American Studies at the University of WisconsinMadison offers students an opportunity to study those aspects of black history, culture, and society in ideal interdisciplinary models that reconstruct African American life. It challenges students to critically examine facts and issues that are historically and contemporaneously relevant to the African American experience. The department offers an undergraduate major and certificate. The MA program is based on personalized programs of study shaped to meet the needs of individual students, many of whom participate in the Bridge programs which enable them to move directly into PhD programs in English and History. Faculty members and students are active in a broad range of activities, including hip-hop programs for at-risk youth, community theater, college classes for low-income adults, and the Public History Project.