Former apartheid activist and expert in international human rights, Dr. Johan van der Vyver, will speak at Ferrum College on Thursday, March 27. The Boone Honors Program will sponsor the event at 7:30 p.m. in the Blue Ridge Mountain Room. The event is being held in conjunction with the campus-wide theme of social and economic justice, which is being coordinated by the School of Social Sciences this year.

     Dr. Johan van der Vyver is a professor of international law and human rights at Emory University School of Law in Atlanta, Ga. He is an expert in human rights law and has been active in the promotion of human rights in South Africa for years. While in South Africa, Dr. van der Vyver was an outspoken critic of the practice of apartheid, a system of legalized racial segregation of the nonwhite population. As a former resident of South Africa, he was once a professor of law at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg.

     Dr. van der Vyver will speak about his experience as a person who has tried to bring an end to apartheid and to promote social and economic justice in the world. According to Dr. Lana Whited, professor of English and director of the honors program, the goal of van der Vyver’s visit is to make students more aware that there is social and economic injustice all over the world, not just here in the United States. Whited says she believes we learn best from looking directly at an individual’s life and what has happened to him or her.

     The program is free and open to the general public. For more information, contact Dr. Lana Whited at lwhited@ferrum.edu or 365- 4334.

     Ferrum College is a four-year, private, co-educational, liberal arts college affiliated with the United Methodist Church. Ferrum offers a choice of nationally recognized bachelor’s degree programs at a cost well below the national average for private colleges. For more information on Ferrum, visit www.ferrum.edu.