Northeastern Expands Global Reach With Africa Partnership
Northeastern Expands Global Reach With Africa Partnership. Northeastern Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs David Madigan and Zeblon Zenzele Vilakazi, vice chancellor of University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, have signed a memorandum of understanding expressing a mutual desire to work together and find areas of collaboration and opportunity.
“We are highly motivated to build this partnership,” Madigan said, noting that Wits might become Northeastern’s anchor in South Africa. Vilakazi, a nuclear physicist and a fellow of the United Kingdom’s Royal Society, said he was excited about cementing this partnership, as well. He quoted an African proverb, saying, “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, let’s walk together.”
Wits aims to generate graduates with scarce high-level, globally competitive skills, who can address local social and economic challenges in Africa. Wits is known for its work in deep-level mining, science, health sciences, law, governance and the humanities. The university offers about 3,600 courses to approximately 32,500 full-time students, 55% of whom are female and a third are postgraduates.
By welcoming students from different backgrounds, Wits is forging a new generation of South Africans, Vilakazi said, who can tackle problems not from their narrow backgrounds, but by working together, finding commonalities instead of differences, and appreciating each other’s talents. “Democracy only survives, if you have highly educated people, who search for truth and questioning,” Vilakazi said.
Launched in January 2021, Northeastern’s Africa Global Initiative strives to strengthen the university’s presence in African countries through mutually empowering, existing and new research and academic partnerships with African institutions and stakeholders. AGI seeks to expand African student enrollment in Northeastern programs and raise awareness of and secure experiential opportunities in Africa for Northeastern’s students, graduates and researchers.
