Interview with Dr. Lejeune Lockett, CDU Director of the Office of International Affairs
Please briefly describe some highlights of your professional background? Why international affairs as a career endeavor?
I am right now, physically, in South Africa, in Johannesburg. And yesterday, I went to the apartheid museum. I was here as a high school student, two weeks in South Africa. We were on my high school dance team, and that brought us to South Africa in the midst of apartheid, and now, I’ m looking back and learning about the history that was at the height of the struggle.
It was life changing. And I just reaffirmed yesterday that that was sort of the starting point of a lot that led to where I am today. I never thought that 20 years later, I would actually be living in in Namibia, which is a former territory of South Africa. So many of the apartheid laws that were applied to South Africa were also applied there. Things were just starting to come together because after leaving Namibia, my first job when I moved back to the United States was at CDU, after living abroad for 16 years. So, when you talk about the highlights of my career, it starts before my career began.
I was previously the Associate Director for the United States Peace Corps for Namibia. I was responsible for setting up, running, and growing the Peace Corps HIV AIDS and community health care program in that country. That was really important for me because
I had been living in Mexico for 10 years working in public health and always wanted to have a job working in the federal government, but just didn’ t know quite how to make that connection or that leap professionally.
That job with the Peace Corps was sort of a dream job in many ways. It helped to set the ground for a lot of what I do at CDU because it’ s that same type of work; tapping into those same networks, those same skills, and those resources that I had developed by then.
You have an extensive background of service on the international front. How does that experience factor into your leadership at the CDU Office of International Affairs?
I am the founding director of the Office of International Affairs. And that is very much in line with my experience because in a lot of my jobs, I’ ve been the one to initiate something. I’ ve done a lot of that, like I mentioned with the Peace Corps. That program was a large endeavor that’ s still in existence today. It started in 2004. Now that I’ m at CDU, the whole premise is sort of the tagline that I created for the office: to bring CDU to the world, and the world to CDU.
Going back to the Peace Corps, and the whole idea that people are one. One of the goals of the Office of International Affairs is to bridge cultures. That one
CDU College of Medicine | PG. 17