African Leadership University v2: the Flagship Campus in Rwanda Heads Online
Back in 2017 I offered a data science short-course at the African Leadership University’s inaugural campus in Mauritius, during its second year of existence. They were operating more like a start-up company than a university, with a business mindset, entrepreneurial culture, aspirations of scaling to numerous campuses and millions of students, and not surprisingly a number of obstacles to overcome (blog here). I taught their first cohort of students, the only class where everyone was guaranteed a full scholarship — admissions was highly competitive and the students were strong. Now, six years and one pandemic later, ALU Mauritius has been renamed the African Leadership College, ALU’s flagship campus is in Kigali, Rwanda, and most significantly the new plan for scaling has students on campus for just a few months, with the balance of their four years conducted online via “hubs” in a number of locations around Africa.
My data science short-course was populated by some of the last students spending their entire time on the Rwanda campus. The admissions rate had increased to about 40%, and while many students were eager enough and a few quite capable, it wasn’t the select group I experienced in ALU’s inaugural class. Also, consistent with ALU’s mission and philosophy, their education is focused far more on personal skills, entrepreneurship, and project-based learning than traditional college curriculum, so my material and approach was a departure for them — welcomed by some but challenging for others. (When I asked a group of students why they picked ALU, many specifically mentioned project work and avoiding exams.) While there are undoubtedly benefits to the soft-skills philosophy, I do have concerns about meshing that type of education with primarily online learning; time will tell how it works out.
The previous week, as I was wrapping up my visit to the African Leadership Academy in Johannesburg (the third arm of the African Leadership Group along with ALC and ALU), I received several bits of slightly concerning news from my Kigali organizers. First my welcome meeting with a dean was cancelled. I did eventually meet some faculty over lunch, but as at ALU Mauritius in 2017, faculty don’t seem prominent in the ecosystem, and I learned it’s now fairly common for faculty and staff to be remote. In fact, the day I arrived I was informed that the two staff I’d been interacting with for the months of planning would not be on campus; a pair of ALU interns and two student course assistants would be in charge of my visit. Finally, a plan they’d proposed for offering formal credit to students who followed up my short-course with additional faculty-supervised work seemed to have gone by the wayside.
Hiccups are par for the course, so I stayed positive as I made my way from South Africa to Rwanda. My hopes were buoyed considerably when the interns sent me a list of 100 registrants hailing from multiple colleges across Kigali, but the first morning found only 35 in the classroom. (Quite a few more appeared on the second day but I’m pretty sure the surge was due to a reprimand from the organizers to those who registered but didn’t show up; by day 3 we were back down to 35.)
Despite the hiccups, the four-day course went off relatively smoothly. Most of the participants were regular ALU undergraduates, but some were from the new tech-focused ALX program, and one or two from the graduate-only Carnegie Mellon University Africa campus right next door. Regardless of class size or composition, everywhere I teach there are at least a few students in the front eagerly consuming every morsel of material, usually quite capable and often telling me at the end that it’s been a transformational experience for them. ALU’s course was no exception in that regard — thank you front row-ers!
With the canceled meetings at the start and a planned free weekend at the end I had plenty of time to explore, and I took full advantage of it. Unlike Johannesburg, Kigali’s city center is thriving and safe, and the rest of the city sprawls across attractive hills and valleys. Riding on the back of a motorcycle (“moto”) is by far the most common way to get around. Early each morning I set off on a one-way jog in a new direction and then caught one of the ubiquitous motos back to my hotel — how liberating it was not to worry about navigation or timing during my morning runs!
I visited the Kigali Genocide Memorial, a moving reminder of Rwanda’s past, and post-teaching I spent a weekend at Volcanoes National Park on the border with Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. There I scaled 12,200' Mount Bisoke, rather challenging with its steep and muddy trails, but the hands-down highlight was gorilla tracking. It’s the pinnacle activity for most tourists in Rwanda and deservedly so — management of the activity and respect for the gorillas is impressive, and my experience was as magical as promised.
Stanford recently wrote an article about the instructional odyssey, which just passed its seven-year mark. While not every destination goes smoothly or is an ideal fit, that’s the nature of the endeavor, and I can say with confidence that every stop has been worthwhile. Where will I go next? Plans for 2024 are underway but not firm yet — stay tuned.
