Palestinian Professor at Oxford University Karma Nabulsi won the prestigious Inspiring Leader Award at the Guardian University Awards 2017 in London on Wednesday evening.
The director of Undergraduate Studies at the Department of Politics and International Relations was one of two women to have been shortlisted for the award. The general public voted who they thought deserved the award among the shortlisted candidates who were chosen by a panel of higher education experts and Guardian journalists.
Nabulsi was educated in Beirut Lebanon New York Rabat Morocco the UK and Paris. She was a PLO representative from 1977-90 serving at the UN Beirut Tunis and the UK. She was a special guest at Middle East Monitor’s Palestine Book Awards last year.
She is a Fellow in Politics at St Edmund Hall and an Oxford UCU equalities officer and a member of the staff BME network. She has recently directed “The Palestinian Revolution” a bilingual Arabic-English digital teaching resource exploring Palestinian revolutionary thought and practice in the 1950s 60s and 70s.
She told the University newspaper that “This ‘Inspiring Leader’ award truly belongs to the students at Oxford and right across the country who are campaigning for equality against all forms of racial discrimination for decolonizing the curriculum and the freedom of expression and democratic rights at the universities every day”.
Of Karma the judges said: “Without her patience dedication and commitment the experiences of numerous students at Oxford and elsewhere would have been immeasurably poorer”.
Sponsored by the British Academy the endeavor was a collaboration with universities institutes and museums across the global south specializing in anti-colonial history. The award honors a leader who has brought out the best in their team and achieved exceptional results. They champion innovation and collaboration deliver real change and inspire the higher education community.
