Source The Chronicle of Higher Education
by Karin Fischer
On a recent fall afternoon, the Place du Souvenir, a large open-air space on Dakar’s corniche, was humming. The plaza’s name means “place of remembrance,” and it is dedicated to the African diaspora, but ice cream and ocean breezes were the main attraction this day, offering strolling families relief from unseasonably hot weather. Skateboarders clattered down a set of stairs, attempting tricks, while TikTokers used a large sculptural map of Africa as backdrop for their video shoots.
On the plaza’s southern end, a crowd was beginning to form outside a low-slung building. Inside, a group of American college representatives bustled about, hanging banners, fanning out admissions viewbooks, and arranging mounds of university-branded swag on folding tables. An American-style college fair had come to Senegal.
The fair capped a weeklong trip to the West African countries of Senegal and Ghana by eight college flagships from the American South. Unlike a typical college-recruitment trip, the reps were not admissions staff members but senior international officers, the top administrators at their institutions responsible for global strategy.