Williams in Africa’s Cape Town Policy in Action Program
Click above to see pictures of Cape Town Study Away
This innovative experiential study away program teaches students about South African politics, society and development and cultivates their research skills through a special seminar/tutorial and fieldwork placement at the Economic Policy Research Institute in Cape Town (See attached curriculum schematic). The program’s unique feature is the unifying seminar/tutorial on contemporary social and political issues in South Africa. This course partners Williams students with South African Parliamentarians and Ministers of Government in a collaborative learning effort focused on policy issues of mutual interest.
To learn more, contact Dean Laura McKeon at Laura.B.McKeon@williams.edu or Paula Consolini, Coordinator of Experiential Education at pconsoli@williams.edu
Harnessing Globalization’s Potential: South African Public Policy in Action
Program Background
The Williams in Africa Committee has created an experiential program in South Africa that teaches about South African politics, society and development through policy research and course work around the central issues of social justice. The program’s unique feature is a unifying seminar on contemporary social and political issues in South Africa that brings Williams students together with South African Parliamentarians in a collaborative effort with the Economic Policy Research Institute (EPRI), which has a fifteen year history working with Williams on South African capacity building. In addition, Williams students have the opportunity to take courses at the University of Cape Town as well as those offered by EPRI to Members of the National Parliament and government officials from around the world. Williams students combine this course work with research-oriented fieldwork and personal experience of a society that is embedded in the global economy under challenging circumstances. They, encounter and learn about globalization from a perspective that is unfamiliar to most of our students – one where opportunities for a better future struggle with realities of dramatically uneven levels of development and prosperity. One of the most unequal societies in the world, South Africa is a microcosm of the new global village, with all its opportunities and risks.
Program Context
Fortunately, Williams has unusual access to Cape Town. The program builds on relationships with EPRI, IDASA, the Mothers-to-Mothers program (run by Williams alumnus Dr. Mitch Besser ’76), South African universities and researchers, and twenty-five alumni of the Center for Development Economics, and we are learning from the experience of a previous version of this program. A surprising number of current – and past – faculty members have taught or conducted research in South Africa, and our students have demonstrated a genuine interest in studying there.
The choice of Cape Town transcends the opportunity of access. Cape Town is the seat of South Africa’s Parliament, which has legislated a policy framework that over the past fifteen years has rapidly integrated a previously isolated country into the global community, grappling with key issues of social justice in addressing the legacy of apartheid. The government has faced severe challenges – and has documented remarkable successes as well as bitter failures – and many other outcomes across that spectrum. In short, the country’s ongoing struggle represents a rich opportunity for students to not only learn side by side with national legislators but also to work actively on anti-poverty initiatives and economic policy development. In particular, the program for experiential learning presents opportunities to study how civil society engages with government stakeholders in forming a democratic culture. The associated research institutes and non-governmental organizations offer internships that demonstrate how non-state actors play a critical role in supporting and achieving key public objectives, particularly in the pursuit of social justice.
Williams has been part of this process ever since the first democratic elections in 1994, when the incumbent government invited Williams faculty to teach incoming government policy-makers about development policy. From this process emerged the Economic Policy Research Institute (EPRI), which includes two Williams alumni and one Williams faculty member on the organization’s Board of Directors. EPRI runs a capacity building program for the South African Parliament which involves undergraduate and graduate teaching in economics and public policy. Five Williams faculty members and the CDE’s director have taught in this program (along with a diverse group of international academics, including Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz). Over fifty Williams students have worked at EPRI as interns since 1994—most of them funded by the College, including the Wilmers internship fund.
