On Monday, March 30, 2026 19 Austin Community College faculty and staff will leave on a remarkable leadership development opportunity. We will be spending ten days in Johannesburg and Cape Town, South Africa to learn from our brethren there and bring that learning back to ACC to inform our leadership and daily work in our college.
We will be visiting museums, attending lectures, and learning from community-based human rights organizations. We will visit Soweto and Robben Island, among other places. South Africa’s history of apartheid, racial violence, and overt and covert racism – and their more recent history of trying to move beyond their past – will be the focus of our jam-packed days and our daily reflection sessions.
In preparation for this trip, one of the books I read was Nelson Mandela’s autobiography Long Walk to Freedom. He led such a remarkable life, traversed such a remarkable leadership journey, and had such a remarkable impact on his country’s trajectory. Mr. Mandela made so many cogent observations in this book. Here are two that resonated with me.
- “Freedom without civility, freedom without the ability to live in peace, was not true freedom at all.”
- “Freedom is indivisible; the chains on any one of my people were the chains on all of them, the chains on all of my people were the chains on me.”
My hope is that those of us who have been blessed with this opportunity to learn and grow in our understanding of leadership in a diverse community full of varying identities and perspectives will return to ACC with a renewed commitment to the power of collaborative and inclusive community that honors pluralism and multiculturalism and competing perspectives. My hope is that we return with a more acute recognition of the value of respect for differences. My hope is that we return with a replenished promise to serve the ever-present goal of shared decision–making that serves all of those who depend on ACC to transform lives in Central Texas.
I’ll return to this blog to offer snapshots of what we’re learning and what lessons we’ll bring back to Austin. More to come!