He started his career as a biology teacher in the Cape after receiving a science degree from the University of the Western Cape. He obtained a MS degree from Cornell University and a PhD from Stanford. He holds honorary degrees from the University of Edinburgh, the University of Vermont and Cleveland State University.

He was awarded the Education Africa Lifetime Achiever Award in New York, the Spend Love Award from the University of California for his contributions to tolerance, democracy and human rights, and he has also won the largest book award from the British Academy for Social Sciences and Humanities for his book, “Knowledge in the Blood​“.

Jansen was the first black president of the historically white University of the Free State. It was a step up from his previous post as dean of education at another former white institution, the University of Pretoria, where he had played a leading role in integrating the campus. And it posed an even greater challenge. Jansen arrived at UFS to find that reconciliation between white Afrikaner and black students was in turmoil even though Nelson Mandela had earlier declared the school a model of post-racial transformation. There had been incidents of violence centering on race, religion and culture. In a few years’, students self-segregated themselves on campus — especially in the dorms. An ugly incident involving white students hazing black workers who clean the residences had shown up in an online video. It was against that background that Jansen was portrayed in South African media as “a healer,” To much skepticism, Jansen announced plans to forgo revenge and instead forgive past transgressions. He vowed to foster black-white empathy “by refashioning the university’s culture into a bridge” where whites and blacks meet perfectly in the middle. He made the case that every white student should learn to speak Sesotho, the local Basotho language, and every black student should learn Afrikaans. He ordered that every dormitory would be 50/50 black/white to break the segregation practices that had developed in them.

Jansen was one of five children of a domestic worker, later a driver, and a nurse who reared him in “a bubble of decency” amid constant harassment of blacks — often by unwarranted police brutality. He witnessed humiliation, murder, rape and suicide. The family’s property, owned for generations, was appropriated by the state as part of a strategy to disempower blacks. He was intensely religious, but he does not deny that he was an angry young man.

And yet, Jansen finished high school fuelled by the encouragement of an 8th grade teacher. He went on to dodge bullets, fists, racism and harassment at university during the time of the 1976 Soweto uprising which spread throughout the country including the University of the Western Cape where he was a student pursuing a bachelor of science degree. As a teacher he was enmeshed in the lives of his students, even visiting them in the hospital when they were victimised during violence prior to the dismantling of apartheid.

Jansen came to the attention of Archbishop Desmond Tutu and American activists, who selected him for a scholarship at Cornell University. He then went to Stanford to pursue his doctorate. His dissertation analysed curriculum reform in Zimbabwe, “distinguishing what factors inhibit radical change, from an inherited curriculum to something more progressive.” While at the GSE, he also examined education systems in Nicaragua, Cuba and Tanzania.

Jonathan Jansen, PhD ’91

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… among university students and Leading for Change: Race, Intimacy and Leadership on Divided University Campuses​ which describes the transformation of race relations among students at the UFS over a six-year period.

Kevin was previously Provincial Manager, at First National Bank, Western Cape and before that Sales and Service Director in Cape Town; Director of Finance, Human Resources & Admin FNB First Commerce, Gauteng and National Industrial Relations Manager. As Sales and Service Director Cape Town, he turned the business around from bottom to top performing.

At the end of 2006, after 26 years in banking, Kevin founded the South African Ubuntu Foundation. A few months later he took over an organisation called Amy Biehl Foundation as Managing Director (now called Amy Foundation) when they were insolvent and turned it into a thriving organization with 1 200 youth and 5 centres today. In 2014 and 2015, against all odds, Kevin and his team built the Amy Foundation Youth Skills Centre costing over R 8 million and fully paid off in 18 months. Since 2016 Amy Foundation has placed 1 378 youngsters in employment & internships and since 2019 started 153 new businesses.

Kevin is a lecturer and speaker at numerous local and international conferences, corporate events and universities.

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