A Brief History

IHRE was founded in 2000 as a collaborative venture of 14 Southern African universities and U.S. liberal arts colleges, plus three civil society organizations working in the area of human rights. For five years, it offered a month-long intensive course that was scheduled during the U.S. summer semester break. In 2006, IHRE became a joint semester program of Bard College and the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. The semester course makes possible a deep and many-sided intellectual engagement with human rights, and opens up possibilities for substantive participation in human rights work in the form of internships or research projects.

Past Partners

Founding partners of the IHRE summer program (2000-2005) include:

U.S. Institutions: Bard College, Bryn Mawr College, Oberlin College, Morehouse College, Spelman College, Swarthmore College, Trinity College
African Institutions: University of the Witwatersrand, University of Cape Town, University of Fort Hare, University of KwaZulu-Natal, University of the Western Cape, University of Zimbabwe

Present Partners

Bard and the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg are happy to welcome Smith College, the University of Connecticut, and Wellesley College as members of the semester program consortium. Students from Colby College, Hamilton College, Knox College, Oberlin College, and Vassar College have also participated in the semester program.