From L: Mrs Sharne Procter, Director, International Office; Professor Robin Palme (Anthropology, Van Mildert); Professor Palmer’s wife; Mr Roger Beach Economic History, St Cuthberts College; Mr Beach’s wife; and Dr Kola Mudashiru, Regional Manager for Africa.
Durham International Office members, Mrs Sharne Procter - Director and Dr Liadi (Kola) Mudashiru - Regional Manager for Africa, had an ‘exploratory visit’ to South Africa in May 2018.
This was part of its efforts to meet the University’s strategic objectives, which include: addressing student diversity by increasing the proportion of non-UK students to 35% by 2027; driving the internationalisation and global citizenship of Durham University, expansion of the international student exchange opportunities and portfolio and Recruiting the Next Generation of students (RNGS for short).
Being the International Office’s first visit to South Africa in five years, it hosted a networking meeting/dinner for two Durham alumni based in Cape Town: Robin Palmer (Anthropology, Van Mildert), a retired but still contracted professor at Rhodes University, and Roger Beach (Economic History, St Cuthberts College), retired from the insurance industry and now a farmer. The purpose of this meeting was to gain knowledge of current alumni activities towards planning one or more larger get-togethers in 2019. Both Robin and Roger provided the University with South Africa market intelligence relating to student recruitment and partnerships opportunities, and they have offered to help organise larger alumni networking event to coincide with a future visit and any such events beyond that designed to bring Durham alumni in Cape Town and beyond together.