An alumnus of the program, he had traveled to the U.S. in the summer of 2010 with nine other South African students for six weeks, studying alongside students in Fordham’s graduate program in International Political and Economic Development (IPED), part of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (GSAS).

“There is something about having that program on my resume that I think has certainly made a difference and was a signal to potential employers,” said Venter, who is now an economics consultant in Pretoria and who joined the nearly 100 participants at an Aug. 19 celebration.

“Now that I’m doing the hiring, I tend to look twice to see if they did attend these sort of summer classes.”

The Emerging Markets program, which began in 2008 and continues today, is open to all IPED students and students from South Africa’s University of Pretoria. Students learn about monetary and fiscal policies and explore issues of economic partnership between South Africa and the United States.

In addition to classes, in both locations, they visit businesses as well as labor and government representatives. Each year, about 15 South African students visit New York in June, and an equal number of Fordham students visit South Africa in August.

When Venter’s cohort came to New York City in 2010, they attended classes on political risk analysis and finance and visited Washington D.C., Broadway, and the U.S. Stock Exchange.

A Promise Fulfilled

The Emerging Markets program originated with a conversation between Fordham President Emeritus Joseph McShane, S.J., and Nobel Laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who visited Fordham in 2005 to accept an honorary doctorate.

Booi Themeli, Ph.D., a senior lecturer of economics and a native of South Africa, said Father McShane told him the archbishop had joked that in return for his visit, the University would have to do something for South Africans.

Three years later, the first cohort of Fordham students traveled to South Africa, and five years later, Venter’s cohort traveled to the U.S. To date, 208 Fordham students have visited South Africa, while 213 South African Students have visited Fordham.

Henry Schwalbenberg, Ph.D., director of the IPED program, said the goal was to create an opportunity for South Africans who traditionally weren’t part of the educational system to get an advanced degree.

“It really tied in with the end of Apartheid, the establishment of a wider democracy, and Fordham making a contribution to empowering the people who were left out,” he said.

A Transatlantic Romance Blossoms

Elena Konopelko, GSAS ’13, came to the Bronx in 2011 from St. Petersburg, Russia, on a Fulbright scholarship to study with the IPED program.

She joined the Emerging Markets program and visited South Africa in the summer of 2012. There, she met Sokhana Caza, GSAS ’13, an alumnus of the program who was now a program assistant.

The following fall, he returned to the Rose Hill campus to earn an IPED master’s, and the two reunited. They married in 2016, and today, they share a home in Johannesburg with three children.

Konopelko said living in three different countries has opened her eyes to different approaches to business and academia.

“There are so many different options in how to conduct yourself professionally and how best to learn that you can make your own path forward,” she said.

Fireflies and Real-World Lessons

Studying in New York City was life-changing for Caza. Times Square and the subway were new to him, but there were also smaller, unexpected moments—like seeing fireflies on a warm July evening at Rose Hill.

“I’d never seen them in my whole life. Just watching them at night, it was probably one of the most memorable moments of my time,” he said.

After nine years working for BP and Bloomberg, Caza now works for a financial technology firm affiliated with the Singapore Stock Exchange.

“The thing that I really liked when I got [to Fordham IPED]was that most of the professors had experience working for a corporate or financial institution,” he said.

“When they taught, it wasn’t all theory; it was always related to the real world.”

Changing Lives, Changing Families, Changing the World

Ann Gaylin, Ph.D., dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, said the August reunion was one of the most moving experiences she’s had in her career.

“There was such a sense of joy and energy in the students. It wasn’t just about changing lives but changing families and changing the world,” she said.

Margaret Chitiga-Mabugu, Ph.D., dean of the faculty of Economic and Management Sciences at the University of Pretoria, credited the program with creating global leaders.

“I have seen first-hand how the program enriches the student’s academic knowledge and provides a platform to interact with influential business leaders and policymakers,” she said.

“It not only benefits the students who participate; it has created opportunities for staff members at the University of Pretoria to enlarge their networks and has created prospects for future collaboration.”

Watch students from the 2023 cohort visit New York City last summer below:

Fifteen students, alumni, and friends of the University of Pretoria lived at the Rose Hill campus for five weeks. In the evening, they took business classes taught by Fordham faculty. During the day, they visited prestigious companies in guided tours led by Fordham alumni who now work at those companies, including Jason Caldwell, GABELLI ’10,’17, GSAS ’11, who serves as a vice president of private wealth management at Goldman Sachs; Darlene Checo-Nuñez, FCRH ’17, an account manager at Bloomberg LP; and Brian Joyce, GABELLI ’98, a managing director at Nasdaq. 

“This program far transcends the traditional classroom pedagogy,” Vusi Maupa, a 33-year-old senior policy analyst at the National Treasury of South Africa, wrote in an email. “We had immeasurable privileges of interacting with senior executives and gained tremendous insight into [their work].” 

Maupa, who graduated from the University of Pretoria with his bachelor’s and master’s degrees, said that he participated in the exchange program to learn how to manage financial and economic risks and opportunities in his country and beyond. He said those lessons will help him at his job, where he works in the fiscal policy unit.

“Before the program, I had limited knowledge of strategic financial management and political risk analysis. I am now confident with my understanding and knowledge of these subjects. I will be using the knowledge and skills gained in my professional work,” said Maupa. 

Yuvana Jaichand, a 22-year-old graduate student who is studying econometrics, said that the most interesting part of the program was visiting top companies in the business sector. 

“It is interesting to see how they manage to maneuver through challenges and how they come up with various creative solutions to market gaps,” she wrote in an email. “It was surprising to see how big firms/companies don’t have it figured out all the time and how they learn as they progress.” 

Jaichand, who never visited the U.S. before this summer, said that the program has expanded her perspective on the world. 

“I saw this program as an opportunity to experience the world in a new light and to broaden my knowledge beyond an academic environment,” said Jaichand, who is working toward becoming an econometrician or data scientist. “Fordham has provided the opportunity to experience New York, which is known by many as the financial hub of the world, firsthand.” 

Besides learning about the American business world, the South African students used their first trip to the United States to explore New York City. 

Booi Themeli, Ph.D., director of the exchange program and an associate professor of economics at Fordham, said they were invited to watch the annual Macy’s Fourth of July fireworks show by Gregory Stewart, a deputy inspector for the New York City Police Department.

Shortly before the show began, they met the mayor of New York City, Eric Adams. They also saw The Lion King on Broadway, where original cast member Ron Kunene, a friend of Themeli’s, introduced them to some of the main performers, including the actor who plays Mufasa. In addition, the students visited Boston for a weekend, where they toured Harvard, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Boston College. 

The Fordham-University of Pretoria student exchange program was launched in 2007 by the Most Reverend Desmond Mpilo Tutu—archbishop emeritus of the Church of the Province of Southern Africa and a 1984 Nobel Peace Prize recipient who was awarded an honorary doctorate from Fordham in 2005—who aimed to empower the next generation of leaders, said Themeli. 

During past visits, graduate students from South Africa have taken classes at several Fordham schools, such as the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and the Graduate School of Social Service, and participated in on-campus festivities like the annual Dagger John Day pie-eating contest. Outside the classroom, the students have met people who run world-famous companies and gained a firsthand look at the American way of doing business. The partnership between Fordham and the University of Pretoria has also expanded to include the Ubuntu program, a semester-long student exchange program for undergraduates.

In turn, Fordham graduate students have studied in South Africa, where they engaged with foreign political advisers and policymakers and conducted data analyses with students from across the world. In addition, they attended social events where they met a former South African first lady and CEOs of major banks in South Africa. In August, 12 IPED students will visit the University of Pretoria and take business classes with some of the same students who visited Fordham this summer.

“This program represents one of the focal points of Fordham’s internationalization efforts,” Themeli wrote in an email. “It continues to provide opportunities to South African and Fordham students to study in South Africa and the U.S, thus enabling them to gain an understanding of other cultures that are important in their chosen fields of study. In addition, the program is in line with Fordham’s mission to contribute to economic development and social transformation of South Africa and the rest of the African continent.”

But Ubuntu, a joint program between Fordham, the University of Pretoria, and the Jesuit Institute of South Africa has shrunk that divide over the last six years. Recently, the program has been reimagined and restructured.

“Like all programs, it’s evolved. I have worked closely with our partners in South Africa and with others at Fordham to make sure the experience is an authentic and powerful one for our students,” said Maura Mast, Ph.D., dean of Fordham College at Rose Hill.

“I also want to ensure that the communities with whom we engage have a positive experience.”

Learning By Being With Others

Last spring, the 10 students who lived in South Africa from January to June had their experience shaped by the renewed emphasis on the Ignatian principles that shape Fordham’s mission.

“We want to educate our students for social justice, for well-educated solidarity, for understanding how to be men and women for and with others. You get that by being with others, being in their homes, walking down the dirt roads with them, talking to them, and accompanying them,” Mast said.

“That’s how you develop solidarity, and begin to see God in all people, by first seeing them as humans, in their suffering and their joys.”

In addition to taking classes at the University of Pretoria, Ubuntu students participate in community projects. The emphasis on learning with and from the community is part of the program retooling, as are guided reflections with staff from the Jesuit Institute of South Africa.

Ubuntu director Booi Themeli, Ph.D., a lecturer in economics, said the program changes are meant to help students better understand that they’re not just tourists.

“They understand that the program is about them growing up as students at a Jesuit school, and seeing themselves as partners with communities,” he said.

Themeli interviewed each student before their departure, and he said this year’s cohort was phenomenal, in no small measure because two members were humanitarian studies majors, a degree offered in tandem with the Institute of International Humanitarian Affairs.

An Intense Focus on Community Projects

Emma Wilhoit, a rising junior at Fordham College at Rose Hill and a native of Shawnee, Kansas, was one of them. She worked with the social and training services organization Kamcare. Her initial goal was to introduce and distribute reusable sanitary pads to women living in an informal settlement (similar to a shantytown) on the outskirts of Pretoria. That evolved into something much better. Soon, instead of buying the sanitary pads, Wilhoit collaborated with the women so that they could design, sew, and sell the pads themselves.

“The women were ready, willing, and able to respond to my project. All I had to bring were the ideas and the resources, and from there they completely took it into their own hands,” she said.

“Now women in the community have employment and are paid a living wage to produce pads, which are given out through the program.”

Joergen Ostensen, a native of Hope, Maine, and fellow rising junior who is majoring in communications, said he considered Ubuntu key to his career.

“In order to be a journalist and someone who’s able to participate in meaningful discourse in the world, I feel like you need to understand the realities that people face in other parts of the world,” he said.

Ostensen tutored a class of third-grade students in reading for his service project. At the end of the year, he gave each of the 25 students a book he’d written that was inspired by the wildlife safari the Ubuntu class had gone on. He said he hoped the book would encourage reading and expand the students’ worlds a little.

“One of the tragedies of Apartheid was that it was illegal for black people to leave the area they were assigned to, so they couldn’t even go on a safari in the country they live in,” he said.

“It’s not illegal anymore, but if you live in a township and make minimum wage, which is like $1.50 an hour, or you’re unemployed, which is 40 percent of the population, it doesn’t really matter. They’re not really allowed to move around, because they don’t have the financial resources.”

Pausing to Reflect

Wilhoit and Ostensen both felt they benefited enormously from the guided reflections in the program, which is offered in association with the Desmond and Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation.

“Poverty in Africa is very different from anything a student might experience in America. We saw it first hand in ways that could be hard to handle and hard to process. Reflection was useful because we were able to unload it and unpack it and realize how to handle it in the future,” Wilhoit said.

“The village where we lived was really nice, so it was quite a jarring sight to go from our service sites back to the village. It really brought up questions, like, ‘Why am I here and they’re there?’”

Ostensen recalled a few instances that he said were difficult. During a workshop, a fellow student was asked in earnest by a local woman what she should do in a situation where she needed to use her body to get a promotion.

“That was a real conversation she had with someone. I mean, what would you do? Together we could figure out what to say, or just cope with the fact that people are living in a world like that,” he said.

Equally as profound, said Wilhoit, was the intense bond the students formed with each other.

“When we were there, we were all living in the same place, going to the same classes, going on the same trips,” she said, noting that the spirit of Ubuntu can be expressed as “I am because we are.”

“Each one of us is who we are because of the way that the group is. I think I’m going to miss them and being constantly surrounded by these people and experiencing the bond in that way.”

Applications for the spring program are due by October 1.

Dressed in green-and-yellow South African jerseys, the group cheered on the New York City Football Club as it went head-to-head with the Seattle Sounders.

“In South Africa, everyone loves [soccer],” said Sharlotte Valoyl. “People play the vuvuzela, and if their team wins, they have a party or will go around campus singing.”

For Mmane Boikanyo, who works as a marketing manager for TuksSport, the University of Pretoria’s sports department, the outing, along with a previous visit to the NBA headquarters in New York earlier this month, allowed her to take notes on how sports are marketed in America. She hoped to use what she learned from those experiences to better promote her school’s sports department.

“Sports marketing in America is quite aggressive,” she said. “There are a lot of products, merchandise, and high investments in digital media. In South Africa, we haven’t caught on yet. We’re mainly focused on talent acquisition and operations.”

Though it poured during the soccer game, the South Africans didn’t let the rain deter them from having a good time. The group put on their ponchos, sat on the bleachers, and shouted excitedly with other soccer fans every time the ball came close to the goal post.

“This group of cohorts have so much energy,” said Booi Themeli, Ph.D., director of the exchange program. “When people come to a new country for the first time, they often feel overwhelmed, confused, or intimidated. But this group is so enthusiastic. They just dived right in.”

Cultural immersion

The five-week exchange program, a partnership between Fordham’s International Political Economy and Development (IPED) program and the University of Pretoria, gives South African students an opportunity to study at Fordham while Fordham students study at the University of Pretoria, and learn about emerging markets. This year’s New York group will visit private and government institutions such as the World Bank, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, ICBC, and Bloomberg. The group will take trips to notable attractions around the Tri-state area and nearby cities, like Boston and Washington, D.C., to further immerse themselves in American culture and business.

“I want to work for the World Bank or the U.N., so the visits to financial institutions have been helpful,” said Pieter Scribante, who is studying economics. “It has been interesting to see how people who studied economics and finance are applying what they learned in the real world, and using their degrees.”

Mapule Mashapha, who is pursuing a masters in educational psychology back home, said taking courses in family counseling and theories of interpersonal trauma at Fordham is giving her an overview of what to expect as a counselor.

“A lot of what we do in South Africa is theoretical so there’s often no practical guidance of what to expect when you actually begin your career in counseling,” she said.

Basisipho Jack, a graduate from the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls in Johannesburg, South Africa, said the exchange program has helped her to build connections with other students and engage with the Fordham community. Fordham, like the leadership academy, is a very close-knit place.

“The academy was a sisterhood. We all knew each other’s background and got to know each other like family. Fordham feels like that kind of community.”

Ashley Daswa, the nephew of South Africa’s first Catholic martyr, Blessed Benedict Daswa, said the opportunity to study at a Jesuit institution like Fordham is allowing him to keep his late uncle’s vision alive. He said his uncle always encouraged him to “study hard and be a leader.” A welcome message from Joseph M. McShane, S.J., president of Fordham, was also source of inspiration.

“Father McShane told us that we come from a very great country, and that we are the future,” said Daswa, who works at an investment bank in Cape Town. “It makes you feel like you’re a person who is not only going to make a difference, but is also destined for greatness.”

“This is the sixth year we have partnered with Fordham,” said Bland, a fellow South African. “If you think of how this program started with just nine students—and now we have more than doubled that—it’s pretty great,” said Bland.

Bland himself got a toehold in the United States’ banking industry as an exchange student; he thus understands the value of the program firsthand.

“You get a taste of the city and you see things you’ve only seen on TV, like these buildings,” he said of the New York skyline. “It demystifies a lot of this and shows that if you have the confidence and you work hard, you can do it too.”

The program is a partnership between Fordham’s International Political Economy and Development (IPED) program and the University of Pretoria in South Africa. Students from Fordham go to South Africa to study the economics of emerging markets, while South African students come to New York to take courses in Political Risks and Strategic Financial Management. As part of their New York experience, they also familiarize themselves with the American way of doing business, said Henry Schwalbenberg, PhD, director of IPED. The partnership between Fordham and the University of Pretoria has also grown to include the Ubuntu program, which is a semester-long academic service learning and exchange program for undergraduates.

This summer’s cohort has a unique twist in that 15 of the students are young working professionals from South Africa’s private and government sectors, who are studying alongside nine graduate students from the University of Pretoria.

“It’s a great opportunity to be in the same program as them,” student Keaoleboga Mncube said of the professional students. “It’s a bit of a challenge back at home to get into the workplace, so getting to know them gives us an advantage in networking for job opportunities.”

Some of the South African professionals were comparing notes with their American counterparts. Ropfiwa Sithubi is an audit manager with KPMG in Cape Town. She said that she was surprised by the diversity of the American bank employees, but she wasn’t referring to the way the term is usually employed—she meant diversity of educational background.

“In South Africa, most people choose their career from an early age and that’s what they study, but here we have met people who have studied other subjects, such as engineering, and now they are in banking,” said Sithubi.

Booi Themeli, PhD, associate professor of economics and exchange program director, said that interacting with policy and decision makers outside of the classroom feeds back into the curriculum. Many of the students said that they found their American professors to be well versed in the theory that they study in South Africa, but that the American professors provided more practical knowledge and used more case studies than their professors at home.

Schwalbenberg said that there is also a very profound purpose to the program that should not be forgotten.

“South Africa had a political system of apartheid and people were left out of the economy, and now we want people who were left out to be in the education system,” he said. “That usually takes a generation to change things, but we want to do it faster.”

“Our program is a small part of something big.”

The group attended the Macy’s fireworks display as the finale of a cultural/academic experience that marked, for some, the first time they left the African continent or set foot on a plane.

“I’ve seen fireworks before,” said Peter Maibelo, a post-graduate student at UP, “but . . .  here in America on July 4, they’re something not to be missed.”

Maibelo and nine other University of Pretoria students arrived in late May to earn certificates in Fordham’s Emerging Markets and Country Risk Analysis Program and to experience American culture via New York.

The men and women, who left July 5, were co-sponsored by the consul general of South Africa. They lived on campus in Tierney Hall and, in their spare time, saw much of what the City had to offer.

“Two shows in five weeks! Broadway was amazing,” said Bridgette Layloo, a post-graduate student of economics at UP. “Back home, we don’t really go to theatre.”

“Living in the Bronx was great,” said Maibelo. “It helped us to see another side of the U.S. than what you see in the movies.”

The students also were invited to informational sessions at the city’s leading financial houses, including J.P. Morgan and Credit Suisse.

Fordham’s UP Students in Times Square on June 11.

But UP economics professor Reyno Seymore, who acted as a chaperone, singled out as the trip’s highlight a June 11 visit to the NASDAQ Times Square trading floor to kick off the 2010 FIFA World Cup, opening in their native South Africa, The students joined South African Consul General Fikile Magubane in ringing the opening bell.

“We missed the opening ceremony in South Africa,” said Bernard Mohlakwana, a UP graduate student in economics, “but we had a different kind of opening ceremony right here.”

Following the NASDAQ opening, the visiting students walked from Times Square to New York’s Paley Center for Media to watch the match.

“We were blowing on our Vuvuzellas and wearing our South African t-shirts,” said Maibelo. “Everybody was staring at us and smiling, and it made up for our not being home.”

UP student Peter Maibelo and GSAS student Oudolapo Fakeye were roomates in TIerney Hall.

A few Fordham students joined the South Africans on their outings. GSAS graduate student Loren James enjoyed the chance to go backstage at Chicago, and to visit Washington D.C., where the group toured the Capitol and visited the United States Agency for International Development.

“I would never be able to do these things on my own, so this program has helped me,” said James, who in August 2009 was among the first Fordham students to attend a summer session at UP. “Being able to share Fordham with them—and especially those places they might not get to see otherwise—has been worthwhile.”

Mohlakwana said he found the coursework in risk analysis particularly relevant to his future plans. Each student had to choose a country to study, and Mohlakwana chose Tanzania, which he analyzed for its strength as an emerging developing market.

“Africa is on the verge of becoming the next big emerging market, and I want to be there and see it through,” he said. “This was my first time off the African continent, and I am taking a lot home with me.”

Oudolapo Fakeye, a GSAS student in economics who took classes with the students, agreed.

“What Fordham is doing is monumental,” he said. “It has offered a course on emerging markets and so many African markets are primed to be very big over the next few decades. South Africa is at the forefront. It shows great promise and has political stability. So an exchange between Fordham and UP students is very significant.”

Seymore said that both Fordham and UP have begun listing each institution’s economics faculty members and their areas of expertise, hoping to match up those professors with similar interests. For Seymore, it was a “thrill” to meet Dominick Salvatore, Ph.D., Distinguished Professor of Economics and the author of International Economics, the textbook that Seymore routinely uses in his UP classes.

“It’s our hope that UP and Fordham will end up with some joint research, which would be good for both institutions,” said Seymore, a specialist in environmental economics and international trade.