Jansen

Jonathan Jansen, M.S. ’87, vice chancellor and rector of the University of the Free State in South Africa, will give three talks on higher education and South Africa while on campus Oct. 21-23.

His talks, which are all open to the public, are:

• “A South African Model for Practicing Community Engagement,” Monday, Oct. 21, at noon in the Africana Studies and Research Center’s (ASRC) Multipurpose Room;
• “The Role of Higher Education in the Development of South Africa,” Tuesday, Oct. 22, 4:30 p.m., in 110 Physical Science Building; and
• “Meeting the Spirit and Letter of Diversity on a South African Campus,” Wednesday, Oct. 23, 4:30 p.m., ASRC Multipurpose Room.

Jansen, who has held his current position since 2009, is the first black vice chancellor at the University of the Free State, a formerly all-white institution in Bloemfontein, South Africa. He is an honorary professor at the University of the Witwatersrand, received an honorary doctorate from the University of Edinburgh and Cleveland State University and is a fellow of the Academy of Science of the Developing World. Jansen serves as vice president of the South African Academy of Science and leads major studies on behalf of the academy, including research on the role of the South African Ph.D. in the global knowledge economy and on the future of the humanities in South Africa.

Jansen, who has a master’s in curriculum and instruction in science education from Cornell, is a fellow of the American Educational Research Association and the author of “Knowledge in the Blood” (2009), and co-author of “Diversity High: Class, Color, Character and Culture in a South African High School” (2008) and “Curriculum: Organizing Knowledge for the Classroom” (2010).

Jansen will be on campus as a Messenger lecturer; his Oct. 22 talk is part of the Einaudi Center’s Foreign Policy Distinguished Speaker Series.