Fellowship visit deepens ties with Nelson Mandela University

Mumbi Mwangi

When Mumbi Mwangi wrote her doctoral dissertation in 1998 she had advocacy on her mind. She went a step further to include letters in her dissertation calling on the African Union including the president of her nation, Kenya, to encourage them to create opportunities for African women to go to school.

Today, as professor of gender and women’s studies at St. Cloud State University, she is doing the work she advocated for all those years ago.

Nelson Mandela University announced in March that it would start a Gender Studies Center and invited Mwangi to help guide and nurture development of the center.

The announcement was part of President Robbyn Wacker’s visit to Nelson Mandela University to sign a memorandum continuing the university’s 22-year partnership of student exchange.

“The Gender Studies Center and Professor Mwangi’s work are emblematic of the great work that our faculty are doing and what can be accomplished when we work closely with our partners,” Wacker said. “St. Cloud State University is committed to promote engagement as a member of a diverse and multicultural world. This partnership is one way we are working toward that commitment.”

The idea for the Gender Studies Center grew out of the Carnegie African Diaspora Fellowship Program (CADFP) visit by Mwangi in 2015.

“It’s actually growing the partnership between St. Cloud State and Nelson Mandela University,” Mwangi said. “I am always very grateful to St. Cloud State for giving me those opportunities.”

President Wacker, Dean Mark Springer, Gender and Women’s Studies Program Director, Beth Berila, have all been supportive of these efforts, she said.

Mwangi’s first connection with Nelson Mandela University was when she visited as part of the study abroad program in 2014. She went to explore opportunities for connecting with Nelson Mandela University in her own teaching and saw an advertisement for the Carnegie African Diaspora Fellowship.

She worked with Nelson Mandela University to apply for the program so she could work with the university on gender and women’s issues.

Mwangi was chosen to participate as one of the Carnegie Foundation’s second round of 59 fellows in December 2014. The class of CADFP fellows included Professor Amos Olagunju who was connected with Caleb University in Nigeria.

Through the fellowship, Mwangi was housed for three months in Nelson Mandela University’s Center for Advancement of Non-Racialism and Democracy (CANRAD) and reached out to people on campus and in the community to begin conversations about gender issues.

“I was talking about the importance of African universities really being aware of gender issues — violence against women, sexual violence and how gender effects how students — male and female — access education,” Mwangi said.

She participated in seminars and conferences, gave presentations about feminist research and met with community members and students in their residential hall to talk about dismantling the patriarchy.

“The students had never heard anything like that,” she said. “Many of them came. That was amazing.”

“We had a conversation about what is patriarchy and how can we dismantle patriarchy.”

Most of the young men had never been exposed to the idea that there could be anything wrong with patriarchy, and they engaged in conversation about the concept and how they can change the system, she said.

Mwangi also met with Nelson Mandela University administrators to learn how they were addressing gender issues and found out that there was room for improving formal policies.

“I felt as an African woman myself having lived there and grown up there, that it was very important for the university to start something to do with gender across the curriculum or even women’s studies courses,” she said. “I started talking about the importance of having at least a policy that addresses gender issues.”

The administrators took that message to heart in their deliberation of establishing the Gender Studies Center, which Mwangi hopes will be a voice for research and advocacy for the entire Eastern Cape Province.

She’s hoping that gender advocacy work will connect with the work already being done by students like a group of young women she met while on her fellowship in 2015, who were sensitizing the university community about gender violence.

They were looking to highlight the problem of sexual violence on campus.  In listening to these women, Mwangi recognized the young women that she addressed in the third letter from her dissertation to — young African women in higher education.

She read her letter to them about her desire that these young women see the other women who came before them in academia as trailblazers and to continue moving forward.   In reading the letter to the girls, Mwangi said, “I had imagined this, but I didn’t know it would come to fruition.  I had imagined writing a letter to you. … many years later, I am actually doing it. … I get to read it to you.”

The conversation with the young women led to a brainstorming session on how they could visit St. Cloud State University. They took the initiative to fundraise and work with administrators to incorporate a study abroad program in the United States into their program. At St. Cloud State, Mwangi worked with colleagues to develop a program for them that included visits to St. Cloud schools where they observed teachers in the classrooms.

Today, these young women have graduated and are working as teachers in their communities. When Mwangi returned to Nelson Mandela University this Spring, she met with a few and learned how their experience in the United States had earned them respect, inspired them to speak to young girls about the importance of education, and helped them become leaders in their initiatives surrounding girls’ education and leadership in South Africa. 

Other connections have grown from Mwangi’s fellowship as well. She now serves as an external examiner evaluating doctoral dissertations for graduate students in Nelson Mandela University.  She is also is a research application grant reviewer for the South African National Research Foundation scholars’ list.

Mwangi hopes to return to Nelson Mandela University in July to participate in the celebration to mark the launch of the Gender Studies Center.

“For me this is a realization that oftentimes we have something to offer, but we never think about the implications of that … until you see in reality what has transpired out of those seeds you have sown — it is so empowering.” Mwangi concluded.