The University of Johannesburg (UJ) has been selected by the prestigious Carnegie African Diaspora Fellowship Programme (CADFP) to host Prof Emmanuel Glakpe from Washington D.C., USA.
Prof Esther Akinlabi, Head of the UJ Department of Mechanical Engineering Science, will co-lead a collaborative engineering curriculum project with Prof Glakpe in May and June 2017.
UJ’s project is one of 69 CADFP projects that will pair 70 North America-based African scholars with higher education institutions and collaborators on the continent to develop curricula, conduct research, teach graduate students, and train and mentor students and professors in the coming months.
Comments Prof Akinlabi: “Prof Glakpe will assist us in better positioning UJ for globalisation of our engineering curriculum and enhancing the relevance of what we teach. He will be involved in curriculum development and review, delivery of seminars, and interaction with staff members and students at the Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment (FEBE). We look forward to knowledge transfer from him and doing joint publications with him.
“Although Prof Glakpe will focus on Mechanical Engineering Science, he will also interact with other departments in the Faculty and work closely with our FEBE Engineering Education Specialist Dr Carroll Johnson.”
Prof Glakpe is from the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Howard University. He is also the institutional coordinator of the Partners for the Advancement of Collaborative Engineering Education (PACE) programme in which he interacts with other institutions globally to advance engineering education.
Prof Glakpe has been involved in the planning of a number of international conferences specifically on engineering education and research such as the annual International Conference on Engineering Education and Research (ICEER). He has presented a number of papers on engineering education in such conferences. He has taught a global course at five international institutions. He has conducted funded research and published extensively in the areas of basic and applied energy research studies with funding from various agencies in the United States.
The CADFP programme is funded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York and managed by the Institute of International Education (IIE).The projects span all disciplines from agroforestry to e-learning modules for nursing, and from ethnomusicology to military mental health. The CADFP Advisory Council is comprised of academic leaders from Africa and prominent African Diaspora academics.
According to Dr. Zeleza, chair of the CADP Advisory Council, “Diaspora academics constitute a critical facet of higher education internationalisation. The connections fostered through them ultimately support capacity building and innovation in home and host countries. CADFP offers opportunities for truly collaborative, innovative and transformative engagements between African Diaspora academics in Canada and the United States and African higher education institutions in six countries.”
Launched by IIE three years ago, the CADFP programme has resulted in many ongoing ties. In the project’s two-year pilot phase, 110 African-born academics working at 86 United States and seven Canadian institutions took part as Fellows. An impact study conducted by IIE shows that 96% of the 104 hosts at 66 African institutions have continued collaborating even after the formal fellowship ended.
