A 9-person delegation of students, faculty and administrators from Holy Cross is currently attending a two-week global leadership summit at the University of the Free State in Bloemfontein, South Africa. They are joining about 180 staff and students from universities in the United States, Asia and Europe.
The focus of the summit is on international engagement in addressing salient issues around change leadership, diversity and racial reconciliation in higher education through critical dialogues between staff and students from all over the world.
Eminent scholars and politicians are scheduled, including retired Archbishop Desmond Tutu and a number of ambassadors. The summit is taking place from July 8 through July 20.
UFS is a former apartheid university. It was founded as a white-only Afrikaner university and is now desegregated and offers classes in both Afrikaans and English. The summit is part of the UFS Leadership for Change Program, a student leadership development program aimed at nurturing young leaders to become change agents as students at their universities and as a means of embedding internationalization in its strategic priorities. As part of the program, Holy Cross was one of nine colleges in America where USF students were placed in 2010. Seven students were exposed to the academic, social, cultural and residential lives of students. Their visit garnered attention from the Worcester Telegram & Gazette and New England Cable News. Another group of students from the UFS visited Holy Cross again this past academic year.
The summit, with the theme "Transcending Boundaries of Global Leadership," is a reciprocal program of the Leadership for Change initiative.
Five Holy Cross students are attending the summit, including Roobvia Bernadin '15, a music major from Boston, Patricia Feraud '15, a sociology major from Worcester, Mass., Mark Legare '14, a political science major with an anthropology minor from Medfield, Mass., Manny Mendoza '14, a political science major with a premed concentration from Bronx, N.Y., and Yulissa Nunez '14, an English major in the Teacher Education Program from Lawrence, Mass.
They are being accompanied by Virginia Coakley, assistant chaplain; Mary Conley, associate professor of history; Mable Millner, assistant dean and director of multicultural education; and Jacqueline Peterson, vice president for Student Affairs and dean of students.
An intensive program is planned. Components include:
- Introduction to UFS challenges and successes, contextualized by international experiences in similar domains, followed by dialogues in small international groups
- Lectures, research seminars, meetings to discuss possibilities for collaborative projects
- International and UFS staff dialogue sessions organized by UFS International Affairs, Student Affairs, and various other units on campus, including the International Institute for Studies in Race, Reconciliation and Social Justice
- International and UFS student dialogue sessions
- A series of “In Conversation With…” dialogue sessions with prominent national and international figures
- A visit to the Qwaqwa campus
- A varied elective program of cultural excursions
In advance of the summit, Holy Cross students read material on South African history and American civil rights history, including “Coming of Age in Mississippi” by Anne Moody, Nelson Mandela’s autobiography, and background reading on Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr.
Following the summit, the delegation will visit Cape Town for three days, where they will reflect on their experiences and take historical tours at places that have a connection to apartheid or anti-apartheid, including Robben Island where Nelson Mandela spent years imprisoned during the apartheid era, and District Six where more than 60,000 of its inhabitants were removed during the 1970s by the apartheid regime.
News Coverage
- Catholic News Service, July 30, 2012
"Holy Cross Student Sees World in New Way After Program in South Africa" (.pdf)
