Dean Andrews to Speak on South Africa before Off-Broadway Play

President and Dean Penelope (Penny) Andrews will participate in a panel to discuss the play “The Train Driver” and the state of South Africa at the Signature Theatre in New York City on Sept. 15, 2012.

The play, by Athol Fugard, takes place in contemporary South Africa and follows a train conductor who is looking for the bodies of a woman and child who he hit with his train. The conductor traces the bodies to a squatter camp graveyard and begins an initially contentious encounter with the caretaker.

As part of the panel, Dean Andrews, who was born in apartheid-era South Africa, will talk about the current state of the country, including race relations, economic disparity and government corruption, among other topics.

Dean Andrews will be joined by Donna Katzin, the founding executive director of the organization Shared Interest, as well as Brian Phillips, co-editor of The Journal of Human Rights Practice, who will moderate the panel.

Last month, Dean Andrews delivered a talk at The South African Consulate General in New York City during an event that commemorated South Africa's National Women's Month. The South African Consul General to New York, Hon. George Monyemangene, also made remarks at the event.

Since beginning her tenure as Albany Law School’s 17th President and Dean in July, she has also been profiled by the New York Law Journal and, more recently, the Albany Times Union.

Dean Andrews grew up in apartheid South Africa, fighting for equal rights. An annual award in her name—The Penelope E. Andrews Human Rights Award—is given by the South African law school at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. In 2005 she was a finalist for a vacancy on the Constitutional Court of South Africa, the highest court on the country’s constitutional matters.

In addition to teaching and conducting legal scholarship around the world, Dean Andrews has consulted for the U.N. Development Fund for Women, and for the Ford Foundation in Johannesburg, where she evaluated labor law programs. She earned her B.A. and LL.B. from the University of Natal, Durban, South Africa, and her LL.M. from Columbia University School of Law.