Nine students from the University of the Free State (UFS) in Bloemfontein, South Africa, will visit Cornell Sept. 26 to Oct. 6 to get a taste of life on an American campus and to engage in discussions about how to address issues of discrimination and ensure equal opportunity.

The nine are among 80 students in the UFS Leadership for Change program who will visit foreign universities for immersion in other cultures. The visits are intended to expose South African undergraduates to new interracial and multicultural environments. They also will give the students new perspectives that they can take back to South Africa, where they may assume leadership roles to lead dialogues for change while establishing worldwide networks with colleagues.

Cornellians likewise will have the opportunity to learn firsthand about how South Africa has achieved significant social change in a brief period of time and with ongoing challenges there.

"South Africa, the Rainbow nation, has made great strides in addressing the racism that was so evident during the apartheid era," said Alice Pell, Cornell's vice provost for international relations. "However, in both South Africa and the United States, bias and inequality persist. The university community is fortunate to have the opportunity to discuss race and social justice issues with some South African students," she added.

Last year, Jonathan Jansen, M.S. '87, the first black rector and vice chancellor of UFS, signed a memorandum of understanding with Cornell, a general agreement for faculty and student exchanges and research collaboration. The UFS student visit is the first tangible benefit of this agreement.

"This is a unique program that exposes students to a completely different environment [than they are used to], early in their college careers," said Laurie Damiani, director of international initiatives in Cornell's Office of the Vice Provost for International Relations. "We want them to interact with students at Cornell, to see what campus life is like at Cornell and to experience life at an American university," she added.

The UFS students will stay in Keeton, Bethe and Becker houses, and their schedule at Cornell will be busy and varied: They will meet with President David Skorton and attend performances by Ordinary People, a student theater troupe aimed at educating people about oppression, and the Wynton Marsalis concert in Bailey Hall, compliments of the Student and Academic Services Office. They will also attend discussions and lectures on race, ethnicity, gender, culture and social change given by faculty from across the university.