Biography
Upenyu S. Majee is the Inaugural Director of the Institute of Ubuntu Thought and Practice (IUTP) at Michigan State University (MSU). He previously served as 1) Faculty Lead for the Reeves Scholars Program, a 2020-2025 reciprocal exchange between teacher candidates at MSU and the University of Cape Coast, Ghana and 2) Project Manager for Ubuntu Dialogues, a 2019-2023 collaboration between MSU and Stellenbosch University, South Africa. Upenyu holds a joint PhD in Educational Policy Studies and Development Studies, and master’s degrees in Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis & African Languages and Literature from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and a bachelor’s degree in English Literature and Linguistics from the University of Zimbabwe. His research and teaching revolve around internationalization and US-Africa engagement in higher education, and Ubuntu as a philosophy, epistemology, methodology, and pedagogy. Upenyu is a member of the Comparative and International Education Society and the African Studies Association. He finds joy and growth opportunities in convening and curating substantive and sustained dialogues across differences.
Projects
Ubuntu and AI: Integrating African Indigenous Knowledge Systems and Emerging Technologies
The project received $75,000 in funding from Alliance for African Partnership (AAP) as part of the AAP Culture and Society Transforming Lives Research into Use Platform Program. The 15-member project team comprises 12 faculty, 2 graduate students, and 1 staff from MSU, Stellenbosch University (South Africa), University of Dar es Salaam (Tanzania), Egerton University and United States International University Africa (Kenya), and University of Botswana (Botswana). Project outputs will include 2 peer-reviewed journal articles, digital portal featuring project activities and tailored towards multiple audiences in and outside academia, and proof of concept on post-project directions.
Ubuntu: A Multidimensional Exploration
Ubuntu is often characterized in academic and in public discourses as a philosophy or moral ethic. This project builds on the Ubuntu-as-philosophy foundation to explore Ubuntu from several other dimensions and configurations, including epistemological, theoretical, ideological, methodological, and pedagogical. To do so, the IUTP team is engaging a multi-disciplinary, transcontinental, and multi-generational group of Ubuntu scholars, practitioners, and custodians for their intellectual, applied, and experiential contributions. Each contributor focuses on one aspect (e.g., epistemology) and provides the much-needed scaffolding for incorporating a multidimensional understanding and application of Ubuntu in all domains of life. Project outputs will be disseminated through multi-media formats targeted for broad audiences.
Media Mentions
Institute for Ubuntu Thought and Practice at Michigan State University
WKAR Public Media
February 26, 2025
Michigan State University’s inaugural Spartan Bus Tour ‘brings MSU to Michigan’
MSU Today
October 28, 2024
Courses
IAH 205: Africa and the World: Portraits of Historical and Contemporary Africa
The course is a multidisciplinary exploration of the complexities of historical and contemporary Africa as they are portrayed in a range of knowledge generation and dissemination venues: popular media, creative literature, non-fiction, historical documents, the visual arts, music, theater, architecture, and artifacts of material and non-material cultures. It is tailored for undergraduate students from a variety of disciplinary backgrounds and lived experiences with an interest in the processes that account for Africa’s history, current realities, and possible or imagined futures—and the implications thereof for U.S.-Africa engagement. The course engages with the roles of knowledge and values in shaping human experience and behavior in an increasingly interconnected, interdependent world. It allows students to critically appraise the invention of the idea of Africa and the narratives and perceptions that have come to shape how and what we know about Africa. The course is offered through the Department of Philosophy & the Center for Integrative Studies in the Arts and Humanities.
TE 491: Reeves Scholars Program Reciprocal Exchange Seminar
The course has been developed as an online synchronous seminar for students enrolled in the Reeves Scholars Program, a reciprocal exchange between teacher candidates at Michigan State University (MSU), U.S. and at the University of Cape Coast (UCC), Ghana. It is designed to help and challenge teacher candidates to think holistically and critically about the past, present, and future structures of educational systems; and the opportunities and constraints that shape learning and teaching in Ghana, the U.S., and the wider global community. The seminar provides participants a close-knit community and cross-cultural and transnational spaces for shared learning as they explore multiple (and oftentimes contested) perspectives around teaching and learning practices and policies in cross-national contexts. It takes the form of facilitated dialogue and engagement with Africa- and U.S.-based faculty members, current/former teachers, and educational administrators. The course is offered through the Department of Teacher Education in the MSU College of Education.
Publications
Ress, R., Thangaraj, M., Majee, U., and Speciale, T. (2023). Racial Justice in “South-South” Internationalization of Higher Education. In L. Scott & M. Bajaj (Eds.). World Yearbook of Education 2023: Racialization and Educational Inequality in Global Perspective. Routledge.
Majee, U.S. (2022). Higher Education Internationalization: Global South/South Relations. In S. Stein, S. Castiello-Gutiérrez, and J.E. da Silva (Co-producers). Critical Internationalization Studies Masterclass Course Handbook.
Majee, U.S. (2019). Beyond the Local-Global Binaries of Higher Education Internationalization in Post-Apartheid South Africa. In C. Sá, E. Sabzalieva & M. Martinez (Eds.). Moving beyond “North” and “South”: New Global Perspectives on International Research Collaboration. Journal of Studies in International Education (Invited submission).
Kaunda, Z., Kendall, N. & Majee, U.S. (2019). Decolonial Approaches to AIDS, Children’s Wellbeing, and Education in Malawi. In I. Eloff (Ed.). Handbook of Quality of life in African Societies. Springer.
Majee, U.S. & Ress, S. (Graduate School Colleague). (2018). Accounting for Colonial Legacies in Conceptualizing Internationalization: Racial Justice and Geopolitical Redress in South Africa and Brazil. Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education. https://doi.org/10.1080/03057925.2018.1521264
Majee, U.S. (2018). Student Mobility in the Global South: The Regional Dimensions in Southern Africa. CIHE Perspectives Report Series: Innovative and Inclusive Internationalization Proceedings of the 2018 WES-CIHE Summer Institute.
Videos
Ubuntu Dialogues Gathering in Film
The second of two culminating events of the Ubuntu Dialogues project, hosted by the African Studies Center at Michigan State University in September 2023. The event marked the transition to the Institute of Ubuntu Thought and Practice.
Ubuntu Dialogues Conference in Film
The first of two culminating events of the Ubuntu Dialogues project, hosted by the Stellenbosch University Museum at Stellenbosch University, South Africa in October 2022.