Toward the end of their Sept. 25-Oct. 6 visit to Cornell, eight first-year students from the University of the Free State (UFS) in Bloemfontein, South Africa, reflected on what they noticed and learned about multicultural relations and student life from their time in the United States. They said they were struck, for example, by the lack of class-consciousness on campus, high faculty interest in students, the continued efforts to handle diversity and the loose sense of community in the residence halls.

Their dialogue with Africana studies faculty and students was hosted by the Africana Studies and Research Center and chaired by Professor Locksley Edmondson, Oct. 5 in the Africana Center's Hoyt Fuller Room.

While several UFS students noted that they noticed a relative lack of "class-consciousness" on campus, several added that they were also surprised at the Cornell professors' availability and interest in their students' ideas and progress; the relationships between support staff and the students in residence halls impressed them as well.

In turning to diversity, Lesego Majebe, a first-year accounting student at UFS, noted that nearly 50 years after the civil rights movement, "Cornell is not complacent. [Cornellians] are actually still looking at ways to handle diversity. ... I think I've learned here that [to] continue to grow in diversity is a journey, and you never quite arrive," Majebe concluded.

When Professor N'Dri Assie-Lumumba asked the UFS students what strengths Cornell seems to be lacking compared with their university, the conversation turned to the contrast between communitarian versus individualistic identities.

"Students here know what they want," said one student, with several others commenting on how focused Cornell students seem in their academic pursuits. However, most also noticed less a vibrant social community in the residence halls, compared with UFS.

Olivia Mpapele, a UFS accounting student, said, for example, that that in South Africa, on mornings she doesn't have the motivation to go to class, she can always count on dorm-mates to force her to come along. "Students here walk alone to class," she shared.

The visiting students (four each of African and European descent) are part of the UFS Leadership for Change program, which sent some 150 students to universities around the world to "explore interracial and multicultural experiences" outside of South Africa, in the hope that they will become a "cohort for change" back home, said Edmondson.

When asked about race relations in South Africa, several students shared that they felt their generation was more open-minded when it comes to racial prejudices and discrimination, having only ever known a post-apartheid South Africa.

It's important for the older generation to speak to youths about apartheid, said UFS student Jacqueline Hawker, because "that's our heritage. ... But then the younger generation is also picking up the frustrations of the past."

Edmondson encouraged the UFS students to look to U.S. history for lessons for their home nation. "Where the United States is now, it didn't begin like that," said Edmondson. "And if you see integrated campuses and Africana programs," he continued, "it was not just given. It came up from the struggles of people."

Said Anne V. Adams, professor emerita of Africana studies at Cornell, in a way to sum up: "Everything is not wonderful, but everything is better than it used to be."

The visit concluded Oct. 6 after Jonathan Jansen, M.S. '87, president of UFS, gave a lecture on "The Politics of Intimacy and the Problem of Change."

Paul Bennetch '12 is a writer intern for the Cornell Chronicle.