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December 19, 2014
Contact: University Relations
Phone: 410.837.5739
Johannes (Jannie) Botes, associate professor in the University of Baltimore's School of Public and International Affairs in the College of Public Affairs, has been awarded a 2015 Carnegie African Diaspora Fellowship.
The Carnegie African Diaspora Fellowship is a program for educational projects at African higher education institutions. As part of the program, Botes will travel to his native South Africa to work for three months at The University of Stellenbosch (US) in South Africa, his alma mater. He will teach a course on peace and conflict studies in place of his host, Pierre du Toit, a professor in the Political Science Department at US, who will be on sabbatical during the spring 2015 term.
"I am extremely honored to be named an African Diaspora scholar and grateful for this opportunity to contribute to my alma mater," says Botes, who also spent his childhood in the town of Stellenbosch. He will use his expertise in negotiation and mediation to assist with further developing conflict analysis and resolution within the department, and to mentor graduate students interested in the field. He also will conduct research on the history and development of conflict resolution in South Africa and envisions the cooperation of members of the Department of Political Science in exploring the problems spelled out in the government's recent National Development Plan.
Botes taught courses as a visiting professor at Stellenbosch from 1998-2002 before taking on the program directorship in his field at the University of Baltimore. Prior to becoming a professor, he had a 12-year career as a radio and television anchor and producer at the South African Broadcasting Corporation. He left South Africa in 1987 on a Fulbright Scholarship to pursue a master’s degree at American University in Washington, D.C.
His work at The University of Stellenbosch in 2015 will be one of 59 projects that will pair African Diaspora scholars with higher education institutions in Africa to collaborate on curriculum co-development, research, graduate teaching, training and mentoring activities. Botes is one of 60 African Diaspora scholars who have been awarded Fellowships to travel to Africa beginning this month to conduct their projects, which range across the arts and humanities, social sciences, education, sciences, technology, engineering and mathematics.
The winning projects in this second round of awards were submitted by 47 institutions in Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania and Uganda.
This innovative Fellowship program facilitates engagement between scholars born in Africa who are now based in the United States or Canada and scholars in Africa on mutually beneficial academic activities. The program is managed by the Institute of International Education (IIE) in collaboration with Quinnipiac University, which chairs the Advisory Council, and is funded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York.
According to original Advisory Council member Toyin Falola, a Nigerian historian and professor of African Studies and the Jacob and Frances Sanger Mossiker Chair in the Humanities at the University of Texas at Austin, "The program contributes to brain circulation and global networking of ideas creating new knowledge in a non-hierarchical empirical manner—the exchanges are grounded in equality. The pool represents the future of the U.S. and Africa with new talents who represent their fields and the future of their disciplines. Creating large constituencies across the Atlantic reinforces collaboration instead of domination, strategic partnership instead of academic distancing, and the various projects contribute to rethinking the epistemologies of knowledge."
Candidates for future Carnegie African Diaspora Fellowships must have a terminal degree in their field and can hold any academic rank. For Fellows matched with a selected project, the Fellowship for the project visit includes a daily stipend, transportation and visa funds and health insurance coverage.
Public and private higher education institutions in Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania and Uganda can submit a project request to host a scholar for 14 to 90 days. A prospective host may, but is not required to, name a proposed scholar in a project request. The proposed scholar and project request are each evaluated by a review committee and are subject to approval by the Advisory Council. African institutions and prospective Fellows (scholars) can collaborate on ideas for a project that the institution submits. IIE maintains the scholar roster to facilitate matches, according to the discipline specializations, expertise, activities and objectives described in a project request.
All of the fellows and host institutions for the first two rounds of Carnegie African Diaspora Fellowships, along with the selected fellows, are listed on the program website, along with highlights of projects and comments from the first round of Fellows and Hosts.
The University of Baltimore is a member of the University System of Maryland and comprises the College of Public Affairs, the Merrick School of Business, the UB School of Law and the Yale Gordon College of Arts and Sciences.