When we began our Ford Foundation grant, “Women and University Leadership in Post-Conflict and Transitional Societies” in 2015, we could not envision addressing the effects of the global COVID-19 pandemic, particularly on universities and women leaders. Nor would we have anticipated reading about a Kenyan woman who wept, while she boiled rocks for her children, because there was no available food due to “stay-at-home” edicts.
Over 25 years ago, we initially dealt with the HIV/AIDS pandemic in emerging nations. At a university engaged in our United States Agency for International Development (USAID) grant, Beverly Lindsay conversed with a woman university president concerning challenges and opportunities for universities.
The president said that all students were able to volunteer for HIV/AIDS testing. Approximately 25% tested positive. The president opined that the percentages were likely much higher because many students were afraid to be tested. We discussed the implications for current and longer-range university endeavors and national development.
Later, Lindsay had a Fulbright fellowship to another nation where she observed the conspicuous absence of university personnel upon arrival. Many were attending the funeral of a colleague who had died from AIDS. Such tragic examples raise critical issues of how to address the immediacy of a global pandemic to ensure health, prevent deaths, and prepare simultaneously cadres of future professionals who are indispensable for national development to enhance the lives of its citizenry.
Overwhelming problems exist with the COVID-19 pandemic’s impacts on universities in developing and developed countries and preparing students for public engagement within larger societies. Our work on six continents has exposed us to comparative illustrations where geopolitical, economic and public health matters are intertwined with university missions and leadership aspects of our Ford grant. Hence, we share perspectives and realities from women university leaders in Indonesia, Myanmar, and South Africa – where we have lived and worked – that are part of our Ford Institute.
These countries represent geographic diversity and women’s leadership – in positions where men globally dominate. These women are a dean, a rector/president and a national public health official and former university department chair. People in these countries belong to some of the world’s largest religions: Christianity (South Africa), Islam (Indonesia – the world’s largest Muslim population), and Buddhism (Myanmar) collectively represent approximately 400,000,000 residents.
Central features of our Ford Leadership Institute are preventing problems through contingency planning, addressing and providing mitigating features, and progressing toward viable transitions to sustainable positive educational and social milieus. Ideally, prevention is desirable but not always possible since these women leaders could not prevent COVID-19. Hence, we provide illustrations of how these women are involved in mitigations.
