Athens, Ga. – James A. Joseph, the U.S. ambassador to South Africa from 1995 to 1999, will speak May 16 at 4 p.m. in the UGA Chapel. His talk will be on “Leadership as a Way of Being: Reflections on Nelson Mandela, Servant Leadership and Personal Renewal.”
The event is organized by the J.W. Fanning Institute for Leadership Development and co-sponsored by the Jane and Harry Willson Center for Humanities and Arts as part of the center’s Global Georgia Initiative.
Joseph will discuss his approach to leadership training, which he said focuses “not simply on what a leader needs to know or what a leader needs to do but on how a leader needs to be.
“Much is made of the many ways in which the American society is changing, but not enough thought is given to what this implies for the way in which we nurture leaders for the future.”
Joseph served in the administrations of four U.S. presidents and was the only holder of the office of U.S. ambassador to South Africa to present his credentials to President Nelson Mandela. In 1999, President Thabo Mbeki awarded Joseph the Order of Good Hope, the highest honor South Africa bestows on a citizen of another country.
He currently is emeritus professor of the practice of public policy studies at Duke University and executive director of the United States-Southern Africa Center for Leadership and Public Values, a bi-national partnership between Duke and the University of Cape Town.
The goal of the Global Georgia Initiative is to present global problems in local context by addressing pressing contemporary questions-including the economy, society and the environment-with a focus on how the arts and humanities can intervene. For more information on the Global Georgia Initiative, see http://willson.uga.edu/programs/public-programs/global-georgia-initiative/.
J.W. Fanning Institute for Leadership Development
The J.W. Fanning Institute for Leadership Development believes that the single most important ingredient for positive change in Georgia is effective leadership. As a unit of the Office of the Vice President for Public Service and Outreach, Fanning aims to strengthen communities, youth and nonprofit organizations through leadership development, training and education. For more information, see http://www.fanning.uga.edu/.
Willson Center for Humanities and Arts
The Jane and Harry Willson Center for Humanities and Arts is a unit of the Office of the Vice President for Research. In the service of its mission to promote research and creativity in the humanities and arts, the Willson Center sponsors and participates in numerous public events on and off the UGA campus throughout the academic year. It supports faculty through research grants, lectures, symposia, publications, visiting scholars, visiting artists, collaborative instruction, public conferences, exhibitions and performances. For more information, see http://willson.uga.edu/.
