AUTHOR: Njabulo S Ndebele
PUBLISHER: SSE
PUBLICATION: Take This Advice, edited by Sandra Bark
ISBN: 0-689-87849-4
DATE: 2005

DESCRIPTION: President Bennet, honoured guests, graduands, ladies and gentlemen. I feel so honoured to be here on this special day. I feel even more so for sharing with three other distinguished people the highest honour that an institution of higher learning can confer on an individual. These are occasions that remind us that universities are about relationships that cut across many conceivable boundaries. That I, a South African who is black, a man, a husband and a father; who has interacted, as a teacher, with many students, teachers, and researchers over the years; and who has from time to time reflected on the human condition through the prism of literary art, have been invited to travel to the United States and to accept an honour of this magnitude from Wesleyan University is an affirmation of a universal value often taken for granted. That Wesleyan University affirms this value regularly is a tribute to those who learn here, who teach here, as well as exercise leadership here.

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