Director, Africana Studies Program
Dr. Bessie House-Soremekun is an award-winning author, inventor and entrepreneur, as well as internationally-recognized scholar, expert, and advocate on entrepreneurship and economic development. She joined the IUPUI team in August of 2007.
As Director of Africana Studies, Dr. House-Soremekun oversees the program's operations. She has streamlined the program's scholarship review process and created faculty and staff awards for excellence. Dr. House-Soremekun also oversaw the development of an important self-study document, and provided leadership during a successful external review of Africana Studies. She has been working with Africana Studies faculty to develop and implement a strategic plan to turn the program into a department, which will take place in the near future.
Dr. House-Soremekun has also worked collaboratively on a partnership between Africana Studies and the Frederick Douglass Papers. The partnership successfully created and launched the Madame C.J. Walker/Frederick Douglass Annual Lecture Series in 2013. Dr. House-Soremekun also played a strategic role in bringing the African Studies Association's 57th Annual Conference to Indianapolis, with Indiana University serving as the Local Host Institution. She organized and served as Convener of the 1st Public Scholars in Africana Studies International Conference on Globalization.
In addition to her work as a professor and Director of Africana Studies, Dr. House-Soremekun is the Founding Executive Director of the Center for Global Entrepreneurship and Sustainable Development at IUPUI. Dr. House-Soremekun developed the core mission, goals and objectives as well as the organizational structure for the center. She has also worked on developing international collaborations between IUPUI and two Nigerian Universities. For her efforts in this area, she was presented with the Egba National Award of Excellence from King (Oba) Michael Adedotun Aremu Gbadebo, the Alake and Paramount ruler of Egbaland.
Dr. House-Soremekun is the author of an award-winning book, Confronting the Odds: African American Entrepreneurship in Cleveland, Ohio. She has received many awards and honors, including the Oni Award from the International Black Women’s Congress, the Global African American Activist Ambassador Award, the Phenomenal Woman Award, the Northern Ohio Live Magazine Rainmaker of the Year Award in the category of Education/Research, the Distinguished Public Service Award, Plaque from the Department of Pan African Studies, the Student Multicultural Center and the Pan African Faculty and Staff Association, and the Minority Innovator of the Year Award. She is currently Associate Dean and Professor of Political Science at Jackson State University.
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