Geographic, Religious, and Cultural Boundaries

An interesting question arose last week at the first set of meetings by the Melton Foundation’s African Campus Search Committee.  We plan to add two new partner universities in the coming years, first in sub-Saharan Africa, and the next in the “Arab World”.  Implicit here is a religious and cultural delineation of “Islamic” and “African” – which of course is both overly generalized and overlapping.  Several Committee members rightly pointed out that a number of countries in West Africa – for example Senegal, Niger, Mali – are Muslim-majority (but not Arab).  Potentially of course both of our new partner universities could end up being on the African continent, for example in Morocco and South Africa.

Where do we delineate?  Ultimately I think we’re on the right track with our original strategy of sub-Saharan Africa and the Arab World, especially if we’re clear that the Islamic World, which includes Indonesia, many Indians, and many other nationalities and geographic regions, is far wider than the purview for our two new campuses.

What do you think?