This morning started with a delicious breakfast at our guest house – ham, Swiss, and mushroom omelets with fresh fruit and tea! After that, it was a 15 minute walk to UJ’s campus (pictures to come another day!) where we met our host, Dr. Neels Fourie. We had a great exchange with colleagues sharing and comparing information on the higher education in the United States and in South Africa; the University of Maryland and the University of Johannesburg; and UMD’s Institutional Research, Planning office and Assessment and UJ’s Institutional Research Planning Unit. Our conversation ranged from enrollment sizes to admissions and access to academic requirements to survey topics to higher education’s place within the larger education sphere. We can’t wait to continue these discussions over the upcoming days!
This afternoon we visited Soweto, a township of Johannesburg where nearly 1.5 million people live. It has a rich history as the home of Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela (both lived on Vilakazi Street, making it the only street in the world to house two Nobel Prize winners!) as well as the site of the 1976 site of the Soweto Uprising. Our wonderful tour guide, Booysie, drove us through areas of Soweto pointing out places like the football (soccer!) stadium that was renovated for the 2010 World Cup, two old power plant towers that have been painted vibrant colors and turned into an adventure activity center (complete with paintball, a climbing wall, and bungee jumping), schools, homes, the Hector Pieterson museum, and Nelson Mandela’s house. We stopped for a delicious lunch and even tried samp, which is an African dish made of cornmeal, beans, and spices. Our favorite part of the day came when we walked around with Booysie and got to talk to some local residents, all of whom were so, so welcoming.
