This year the ARC is honored to be hosting Sipho Seepe.

Professor Seepe is a higher education specialist and strategy consultant. Until recently, he served as the deputy vice-chancellor of institutional support at the University of Zululand. Trained as a physicist, Professor Seepe holds two master’s degrees: one in physics from the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) and another in technology in education from Harvard University (Cambridge, Massachusetts). He also earned a doctorate from the University of Northwest. Professor Seepe is the recipient of several prestigious scholarships, including the Harvard Fellowship and the Senior Research Fulbright Fellowship. Before returning to academia, he served as a special adviser in various ministries, including Public Service and Administration, Human Settlement, Communications, and Defense and Military Veterans. He has written extensively on matters of public interest, contributing significantly to academic and public discourse.

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In 2005, the Africana Research Center and the Department of African and American Studies created the Nelson Mandela Lecture Series to recognize and introduce the Penn State community to the scholarship of an African human rights activist. The ARC named the lecture after Nelson Mandela, not only because he changed the sociopolitical structure of South Africa, but because he challenged the world to have a conscience in addressing human rights.