The Carter G. Woodson Institute was established in 1981 in response to student and faculty demands for a more coherent African-American and African Studies program and a more aggressive program of minority recruitment at the University. Founded in 1981, the University of Virginia's Carter G. Woodson Institute for African-American and African Studies is named in honor of native Virginian Carter Godwin Woodson, known to many as 'the father of black history''. The Woodson's founding director, historian Armstead L. Robinson, launched the Institute with a two-fold mandate: (1) to enhance the research and teaching of African-American Studies in the schools and departments of the University of Virginia and (2) to establish an African-American Studies Research Center which would make important contributions to scholarship and learning at this major southern university.<br>Since its inception under the banner of the Carter G. Woodson Institute, the Department of African American and African Studies has promoted interdisciplinary and collaborative research and interpretation of the African American and African experience in a global context. The Woodson Institute administers the undergraduate major and minor degrees in African American and African Studies (AAS). In addition to the African-American and African Studies major and minor, the department also has a minor in African Studies, which was initiated in 2007. For students who wish to conduct intensive research, the deparment offers a Distinguished Majors Program (DMP) which culminates in a thesis project supervised by an academic advisor.