Port Elizabeth: MyPE - Odora Hoppers First in Public Lecture Series

www.MyPE.co.za: Distinguished scholar, policy specialist, and public intellectual on issues of international development and human security Dr Odora Hoppers will be the keynote speaker at the launch of Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University's Centre for the Advancement of Non-Racialism and Democracy (CANRAD) on Tuesday, 23 March 2010.

The address by Dr Hoppers is also the first in the university's public lecture series of 2010. The title of her address is "Transformative Leadership and the Humanisation of The Academy: Towards the Integrative Paradigm Shift".

Within the UN system, she is a long-standing UNESCO expert in the area of basic education and lifelong learning; was a member of the International Faculty of the United Nations International Leadership Academy (Amman-Jordan); and has served as a regional expert to the World Economic Forum and the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) on traditional knowledge and community intellectual property rights.

Dr Hoppers is a member of the International Advisory Committee of the Hague Appeal for Peace (New York); was a co-convenor of the Global Political Economy Commission and a member of the Council of the International Peace Research Association (IPRA). She was part of the team that prepared the UN study on disarmament education submitted and approved by the General Assembly (2002).

She was a technical adviser on indigenous knowledge systems to the portfolio committee on arts, culture, science and technology, a distinguished professional at the Human Sciences Research Council, an associate professor at the University of Pretoria, a visiting professor at Stockholm University (Sweden), a recipient of an honorary doctorate from Orebro University (Sweden), and is a member of the Academy of Science of South Africa.

In January 2008, she was appointed as the NRF-South African Research Chair in Development Education at the University of South Africa as part of South African Department of Science and Technology's strategic knowledge and human resource intervention into the higher education landscape in South Africa.
NMMU Vice-Chancellor Prof Derrick Swartz said that the launch of CANRAD marks a historic moment in the development of NMMU as it has created the possibilities for making a progressive and defining contribution to not only contemporary understanding of the non-racial project in post-apartheid South Africa, but also practically engaging with civil society, especially schools and neighbourhoods, in building multicultural consciousness and skills.

"We are tremendously excited about the new Centre, and looking forward to innovative projects in Port Elizabeth and beyond where NMMU can promote new communities that are able to transcend the limitations of ‘race' as a basis of social organization".

The launch will also consist of an anti-racism colloquium on Wednesday, 24 March titled "Anti-Racism Network in Higher Education" at NMMU's Missionvale Campus.

Thursday, 25 March 2010 will see CANRAD and the Faculty of Law offering two lectures on equality and the law, and xenophobia and the law. NMMU senior law lecturer and advocate of the High Court Lindi Coetzee and National Director of Lawyers for Human Rights, Advocate Jacob van Garderen will be the guest speakers.

Contact NMMU.