Earlier this week the London School of Economics (LSE), one of the most prestigious universities in England, appointed actress Angelina Jolie Pitt visiting professor for the institution’s Center for Women, Peace and Security.
She will give lectures and participate in workshops for a master’s program covering such programs as ‘Gender and Human Rights,” “Women, Peace and Security” and Gender and Militarization.”
Angelina Jolie Pitt has the credentials to be a visiting professor. She is special envoy for the United Nations Refugee Agency and in 2012 she co-founded the Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict Initiative. For more than 10 years she has been involved with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), working extensively with women who are victims of sexual violence. She is a frequent visitor to refugee camps, including many conflicts zones such as in Iraq, and conducts interviews with the displaced.
The London School of Economics is not performing a little “stunt casting” by giving her visiting professor status. The university also named Jane Connors, the advocacy director for Amnesty International, and Madeleine Rees, who is the secretary-general for the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom.
Universities have wide latitude in who they name as visiting professors, but it’s something that should be more common in Saudi universities. Angelina Jolie Pitt is new to the academic world, and by strict interpretation she is not an academic. But it matters little. She has the experience on the ground and is not handicapped by the limitations of most professors in their respective field who have little practical experience outside their university campuses.
But equally important Jolie Pitt, Conners and Rees provide fresh insight in an important field of study that hopefully will result in reducing sexual violence against women and lessen the burden of refugees worldwide. Their experiences and hopefully unusual approach to their subject matter will inspire their students.
Saudi universities are restrictive. There are written and unwritten rules that govern what professors teach, how they teach and who they teach. There is a rigidity that does not provide wriggle room for students to explore alternative voices. By following the Saudi standard of teaching over a four-year undergraduate program or a two-year graduate program, those programs become stale and less interesting to students. By bringing in fresh faces and fresh voices to address topics that students love — but also feel constrained to explore outside university boundaries — society receives a more engaged, more thoughtful graduate entering the workforce.
I personally would love to see Jolie Pitt, or someone like her, come to Saudi Arabia as a visiting professor. Saudi universities need an unorthodox point of view to complement the curriculum taught to students. The greatest knock against Saudi higher education is the method in how we teach. We spend an inordinate amount of time dotting the Is and crossing the Ts and enforcing stringent, and sometimes petty, rules to ensure students perform their work. Sometimes we are so mired in paperwork that we lose sight that we are charged with turning out members of society with a quality education.
But we do virtually nothing to shake up the curriculum to make it more compelling in an effort to encourage students to want to learn more. Saudi poets and writers not associated with academia would be a good start for general courses. Non-Saudi sheikhs would be an interesting alternative to lecture on Islamic studies. American or British writers discussing the English language and its practical application in everyday conversation and writing would certainly change the dynamic of Saudi classroom instruction.
For western universities there is nothing novel about Jolie Pitt named visiting professor, but for Saudi universities it would be a much-needed major shift in how we approach teaching.
She will give lectures and participate in workshops for a master’s program covering such programs as ‘Gender and Human Rights,” “Women, Peace and Security” and Gender and Militarization.”
Angelina Jolie Pitt has the credentials to be a visiting professor. She is special envoy for the United Nations Refugee Agency and in 2012 she co-founded the Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict Initiative. For more than 10 years she has been involved with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), working extensively with women who are victims of sexual violence. She is a frequent visitor to refugee camps, including many conflicts zones such as in Iraq, and conducts interviews with the displaced.
The London School of Economics is not performing a little “stunt casting” by giving her visiting professor status. The university also named Jane Connors, the advocacy director for Amnesty International, and Madeleine Rees, who is the secretary-general for the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom.
Universities have wide latitude in who they name as visiting professors, but it’s something that should be more common in Saudi universities. Angelina Jolie Pitt is new to the academic world, and by strict interpretation she is not an academic. But it matters little. She has the experience on the ground and is not handicapped by the limitations of most professors in their respective field who have little practical experience outside their university campuses.
But equally important Jolie Pitt, Conners and Rees provide fresh insight in an important field of study that hopefully will result in reducing sexual violence against women and lessen the burden of refugees worldwide. Their experiences and hopefully unusual approach to their subject matter will inspire their students.
Saudi universities are restrictive. There are written and unwritten rules that govern what professors teach, how they teach and who they teach. There is a rigidity that does not provide wriggle room for students to explore alternative voices. By following the Saudi standard of teaching over a four-year undergraduate program or a two-year graduate program, those programs become stale and less interesting to students. By bringing in fresh faces and fresh voices to address topics that students love — but also feel constrained to explore outside university boundaries — society receives a more engaged, more thoughtful graduate entering the workforce.
I personally would love to see Jolie Pitt, or someone like her, come to Saudi Arabia as a visiting professor. Saudi universities need an unorthodox point of view to complement the curriculum taught to students. The greatest knock against Saudi higher education is the method in how we teach. We spend an inordinate amount of time dotting the Is and crossing the Ts and enforcing stringent, and sometimes petty, rules to ensure students perform their work. Sometimes we are so mired in paperwork that we lose sight that we are charged with turning out members of society with a quality education.
But we do virtually nothing to shake up the curriculum to make it more compelling in an effort to encourage students to want to learn more. Saudi poets and writers not associated with academia would be a good start for general courses. Non-Saudi sheikhs would be an interesting alternative to lecture on Islamic studies. American or British writers discussing the English language and its practical application in everyday conversation and writing would certainly change the dynamic of Saudi classroom instruction.
For western universities there is nothing novel about Jolie Pitt named visiting professor, but for Saudi universities it would be a much-needed major shift in how we approach teaching.
