Public Lecture & Launching the New Centre for Teaching Excellence

Professor Hopeton Dunn

“AI, Ethics and the Challenge to Higher Education Globally”

Hopeton S. Dunn is a Professor of Communications Policy and Digital Media at the University of Botswana and a Senior Research Associate at the University of Johannesburg.

He previously served as Director of the Caribbean School of Media and Communication at the University of the West Indies, where he transformed Caribbean media education and received several research awards, including the UWI Vice Chancellor’s Award for Excellence. Dunn also chaired the Broadcasting Commission of Jamaica for 10 years. Since joining the University of Botswana in 2019, he has played a key role in establishing the country’s first Master’s Degree in Media and Communication and is currently leading the development of a new PhD program.

Professor Hopeton Dunn is a former Secretary General of the International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR), making history as the first person from the global South to hold this position. He currently chairs the Panel of Judges for IAMCR’s Stuart Hall Prize, awarded for exceptional research at IAMCR conferences.

Professor Dunn has authored, edited, or co-edited 10 books and numerous journal articles. Notably, he was the lead editor for The Palgrave Handbook of Everyday Digital Life (2024) and Re-imagining Communication in Africa and the Caribbean (2021). His research interests include emerging media, AI, digital inclusion, media decolonisation, and telecommunications policy. Outside of academia, he enjoys music and sports. Professor Dunn is married to sociologist Dr. Leith Dunn, and their children are active in academia in the UK and Jamaica.

Professor Toyin Falola

“Humanities Education for African Futures: Reimagining Scholarship, Creativity, and Knowledge Production in a Changing World”

Toyin Falola is one of the world’s most distinguished scholars, a foremost historian, an academic leader, a modern griot, a man of letters, and a global figure. He is the preeminent historian

Toyin Falola is one of the world’s most distinguished scholars, a foremost historian, an academic leader, a modern griot, a man of letters, and a global figure. He is the preeminent historian of Africa, the most prolific, and the most cited. As Africa’s most decorated and celebrated academic at home and abroad, with over thirty-lifetime achievement awards, twenty-five honorary doctorates, twelve festschriftens in his honor, seven teaching awards, six chieftaincy titles, book awards named after him, and several honorary conferences, Falola is at home with achievements, accolades, awards, and unparalleled distinction.

Over the last fifty years, he has made unique and lasting contributions to the field of African history and the study of modern Africa in general. Indeed, it is difficult to imagine the field now without his extraordinary insights. In addition to his outstanding scholarship, he has given us a lifetime of dedication to the furthering of African Studies and has nurtured generations of graduate students, many of whom have gone on to distinguished careers all over the world.

His generosity as a scholar and as a colleague is legendary. He has made phenomenal contributions to the academy through decades of distinguished service to academic organizations as a board member, holder of executive positions in various academic associations, conference organizing, manuscript evaluator, tenure and promotion assessment, etc.

He was recently described in the Journal of African History as an unusual scholar who combines “productivity with enthusiastic collegial kindness.”