West Virginia University has established an African history scholarship for one of its professors whose work in that field is internationally known.

WVU s Eberly College of Arts and Sciences has established the Robert M. Maxon Graduate Scholarship in Modern African History for the professor who joined the history faculty here in 1969.

The scholarship will offer a stipend for a student pursuing an advanced degree in African history, Eberly College officials said. A fund will also be launched with the ideal goal of providing all the support necessary for scholarship recipients in the future.

Dr. Maxon is a former chair holder for both the history department and WVU s Africana Studies Committee. Hes currently a research associate in WVU s Regional Research Institute and has authored 10 books on African history including his most recent,Going Their Separate Ways: Agrarian Transformation in Kenya,(2003, Fairleigh Dickinson University Press).

Hes a WVU Benedum Distinguished Scholar and Eberly College of Arts and Sciences Outstanding Researcher. WVU s Center for Black Culture and Research has also honored him with its Cheikh Anta Diop Award for Outstanding Faculty Scholarship in African and African-American Studies.

The researcher has directed 14 dissertations on African history while at WVU .

Faculty, students, alumni and others associated with Maxon gathered recently to celebrate the naming of the scholarship with keynote remarks from David Shinn, a former ambassador to Ethiopia and Burkina Faso.

Shinn also held other postings from Africa to Sudan, Somolia, Camaroon and Mauritania.

The former ambassador is now an adjunct professor at George Washington University in the Elliot School International Affairsnamed for West Virginia native and WVU alumnus Lloyd H. Elliot, a former president of GWU .

For more information on the Maxon scholarship, call the Department of History at 304-293-3811.

To contribute to the scholarship fund, call Bonnie McBee Fisher in the Eberly College at 304-293-4611; or visit the WVU Foundation athttp://www.wvuf.wvnet.edu/give.htm.