American-African Universities Collaborative

3rd Annual American-African Universities Collaborative Intercontinental Videoconference
March 1, 2006

View the video from this event
(requires RealPlayer®; 169 MB; 58 minutes, 29 seconds)

Former president Bill Clinton engaged student leaders from 7 universities during APARC’s 3rd annual American-African Universities Collaborative (AAU) intercontinental videoconference.  The videoconference, entitled “Africa and the Global Community,” focused on U.S. policy toward Africa during the Clinton administration.  APARC director Charles Stith served in the Clinton administration as U.S. ambassador to Tanzania. 

American-African Universities Collaborative

An initiative of the African Presidential Archives and Research Center at Boston University (APARC)

Executive Summary

The APARC American – African Universities Collaborative (The AAU Collaborative) provides an opportunity to use the American and African university communities as focal points in a trans-continental conversation about African policy issues, particularly those that focus on democracy, free market reform, and globalization. The AAU Collaborative will result in a better understanding by both Africans and Americans of their respective perspectives regarding policy formation relative to Africa, and will lead to more informed policies and the potential to influence best practices. It is an expansion of the successful APARC – Historically Black Colleges and Universities Collaborative, a collaborative effort between APARC and The Leadership Center at Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia and Elizabeth City State University in North Carolina. The AAU Collaborative will provide partnering universities in Africa and the United States with increased access to a growing number of American and African leaders, policy makers, and academics involved in policy discussions about Africa.

The African universities participating in the first year of The AAU Collaborative are the University of Ghana at Legon, the University of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania, and the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in South Africa. The American Universities, in addition to Boston University, are Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia, and Elizabeth City State University in Elizabeth City, North Carolina. APARC’s efforts will be directed toward engaging its partner institutions in the following elements of The AAU Collaborative:

1. Development of the Private Conversations Video Conferencing Project, involving prominent African public and private sector leaders and the collaborating institutions. This program would entail producing an interactive webcast, featuring a prominent African leader. The webcast would be linked to multiple sites;
2. Participation in African Presidential Roundtable symposiums by representatives of the partnering institution. The African Presidential Roundtable is a gathering of former African heads of state, policy makers and public sector leaders. Discussants come together on an annual basis to deliberate on issues of growth and development as they pertain to the continent;
3. Establishment of a website link between APARC and the partnering institutions;
4. Coordination of the Short Term African Presidential Residency, an annual 3 – 4 day residency of an alumnus of APARC’s Balfour African President-in-Residence Program, and/or the African Presidential Roundtable, at the partnering African universities. Potential appointees for the Residency are former, democratically elected, African heads of state;
5. Coordination of the APARC Fellows Program, in which an elite group of students from each participating institution is appointed for one year to participate in all APARC activities;
6. Facilitation of the Faculty Working Group, which will convene faculty members from partnering institutions on an annual basis. This assembly will serve to facilitate the development of a policy paper(s) relative to specific aspects of democratization and free market reform on the continent;
7. Provision of an allotment of the annual African Leaders State of Africa Report for African Studies faculty, students, etc. at the partnering institutions.

For more information on the member schools, please visit:
The Leadership Center, Morehouse College, Atlanta, Georgia- http://www.morehouse.edu/leadershipcenter/

Centre for Africa's International Relations, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa- http://ssocial.wits.ac.za/intrelations.htm

The African Studies Program, Elizabeth City State Univesity, Elizabeth City, North Carolina- http://cssvc.ecsu.edu/asp

Institute of Development Studies, University of Dar es Salaam, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania- http://www.udsm.ac.tz/ucb/instiofdevelop.html

The Office of the Vice-Chancellor, University of Ghana, Accra, Ghana- http://www.ug.edu.gh