Higher education is really not worth much these days.
Via Daily Mail: She is an Oscar winning actress, a political campaigner and now Angelina Jolie Pitt can add academic to her list of roles. The Hollywood star has been appointed a visiting professor at the London School of Economics (LSE), one of Britain’s most prestigious universities.
She will join former foreign secretary William Hague as a lecturer at the university’s Centre for Women, Peace and Security where she will help to teach students studying for a Master’s degree.
Jolie Pitt, who has been a goodwill ambassador for the UN Refugee Agency and is currently one of its special envoys, has been a vocal campaigner on refugee rights, and against the female genital mutilation and the use of rape as a weapon of war. She said: ‘I am very encouraged by the creation of this master’s programme.
‘I hope other academic institutions will follow this example, as it is vital that we broaden the discussion on how to advance women’s rights and end impunity for crimes that disproportionately affect women, such as sexual violence in conflict. I am looking forward to teaching and to learning from the students as well as to sharing my own experiences of working alongside governments and the United Nations’.
Lord Hague, who worked with Jolie-Pitt on hosting a four-day summit on ending sexual violence in war in London two years ago, said he was ‘delighted’ to be appointed.
He said: ‘This course will help underpin our work in preventing sexual violence in conflict, developing expertise and research to assist us in tackling the culture of impunity. I look forward to working with the LSE students and my fellow visiting professors.’
The one year course will include modules on Women, Peace and Security, Gender and Militarisation and Gender and Human Rights.
Jolie herself has an interesting educational background, having once dropped out of acting classes as a teenager to study embalming technique in a distance learning scheme with hopes of becoming a funeral director. She attended Beverley Hills High School and Moreno High School in California, and has previously spoken of how she became a ‘punk’ at the latter, dressing all in black and getting tattoos.
Jolie graduated from high school aged 16 and launched her full-time acting career. During the late 1990s during a break from acting, she enrolled in night classes at New York University to study directing and screenwriting, before returning to her career and breaking into mainstream Hollywood roles.
DCG
