Prof Safwan Masri in town for Columbia University leadership forum

Educationist Safwan Masri is in Nairobi for a convening of the Columbia Global Center leadership forum.

The forum is a demonstration of Columbia University’s commitment to the world beyond the borders of their New York campus. It will be held at Columbia Global Center - Nairobi on Monday, June 25, at Block A, Mahiga Mairu Avenue, off Waiyaki Way from 6pm to 7.30pm.

Professor Masri is the Executive Vice President for Global Centers and Global Development at Columbia University. He holds a senior research scholar appointment at Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA). A scholar of the contemporary Arab world, Masri's work focuses on understanding postcolonial dynamics in religion, education, society, and politics.

AUTHOR

His writings on education and current affairs have been featured in the Financial Times, Huffington Post and Times Higher Education.

Prof Masri is the author of the book Tunisia: An Arab Anomaly, which was published by Columbia University Press in September 2017. The book looks at the Arab Spring, which he considers to have started and ended with Tunisia.

This being his first visit to Kenya after the book’s release, you can be sure that there will be quite some discussion focused around it. You can get an autographed copy courtesy of Book Point Yaya at the leadership forum and at the bookshop.

In the book, Masri explores the factors that have shaped Tunisia's exceptional experience. He traces the country's history of reform in the realms of education, religion and women's rights. He argues that the seeds for today's relatively liberal and democratic societies were planted as far back as the middle of the nineteenth century.

Tunisia, according to his argument, stands out not as a model that can be replicated in other Arab countries, but rather as an anomaly, based on its history of reformism that sets it on a separate trajectory from the rest of the region.

Masri is an honorary fellow of the Foreign Policy Association. He was founding chairman of both King’s Academy and Queen Rania Teacher Academy in Jordan, and served as an adviser to Her Majesty Queen Rania Al Abdullah.

He is a trustee of International College in Beirut and of the Welfare Association (Taawon) in Ramallah, and a member of the advisory board of the School of Business at the American University in Cairo.

Masri has served on the governing boards of Endeavour Jordan, the Children’s Museum Jordan, Arab Bankers Association of North America (ABANA), and Aramex. He was also in Nairobi in March 2014 to give a lecture at the University of Nairobi.