CODESRIA African Academic Diaspora Support to African Universities Program
Background
The Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) with funding support from the Carnegie Corporation of New York is currently implementing an initiative involving African academics in the Diaspora to support academic activities in African universities. The overall objective of the initiative is to contribute to the strengthening of African universities and of the Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH) by encouraging, organizing and facilitating linkages and exchanges between the African academic Diaspora and African universities. Part of the outcome CODESRIA envisages from this initiative is a framework through which the needs of African universities in terms of teachers, teaching materials, library and intellectual resources could be addressed through organised and sustained engagements with the academics in the Diaspora. The project will also enable the academic Diaspora to support the universities by teaching courses, participating in curriculum and program review and development, running joint summer schools with African universities, hosting African post-doctoral fellows and visiting researchers and professors and supervising or mentoring Masters and doctoral students.
The College of Mentors
As part of the activities of the Diaspora program, CODESRIA has constituted a ‘College of Academic Mentors’. The college is composed of senior academics from the Diaspora and within Africa in higher education, the humanities and social sciences. This component will entail linking selected PhD candidates and their supervisors to mentors for purposes of benefiting the candidate in his/her PhD progress. The mentors will be expected to offer advice regarding relevant literature, read and comment draft chapters of theses in preparation, liaise with the official advisors of the doctoral candidates based at African universities and share their views about the work of the students; and where possible, invite and host the student and the official advisor as visiting scholars. The mentors may also be requested to run various activities under this program such as institutes, research methodology workshops and research networks. A joint workshop of the selected students, their supervisors and mentors will be held at the beginning to agree on working modalities. The College of Mentors will both complement and strengthen the support in capacity building in African universities that CODESRIA is engaged in through the Small Grants Programme for Thesis Writing, the institutes and the methodology workshops.
Target for this call and mode of Application
This call is addressed to Deans of humanities, social sciences and higher education or doctoral schools in African universities and supervisors of doctoral students interested in having their PhD students benefit from the mentorship program. The application package for each nominated student should contain the following:
• A letter of endorsement from the faculty/department identifying the PhD students nominated (specifying the discipline, gender, and the stage at which they are in their research) as well as the university supervisors allocated to the student.
• Status of the students nominated (are they members of staff or full time students on staff development).
• A statement of motivation from the nominated candidate;
• A summarized copy of the candidate’s PhD proposal (maximum 15 pages) in word.
The application for each candidate nominated should be sent in one folder as electronic mail
Eligibility
Only candidates meeting the following eligibility criteria are eligible for nomination.
• Should be affiliated to a university in Africa;
• Must be registered for a PhD;
• Must be registered in the following disciplines: Humanities, Social Sciences or Higher Education Studies
Application Deadline
The deadline for receiving completed applications is 30th September 2016. Candidates will be informed of the results of the selection process by mid - November 2016.
All applications should be sent as electronic mail to the address below:
diaspora.mentees@codesria.sn
Diaspora College of mentors
Call for Mentees
CODESRIA,
Avenue Cheikh Anta Diop X Canal IV
B.P. 3304, CP 18524, Dakar, Senegal,
Tel. (221) 33 825 98 21/22/23, Fax : (221) 33 824 12 89,
E-mail : diaspora.mentees@codesria.sn
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