Naomi Tutu, the third daughter of South African Arch Bishop Desmond Tutu and his wife Nomalizo, has been selected as Metro State's Rachel B. Noel Distinguished Visiting Professor. She will visit Metro State Oct. 10-11.

Tutu, a long-time human rights activist, is director of International Relations and Programs at Tennessee State University. She founded and chaired the Tutu Foundation, an organization, which from 1985-1990, assisted South African refugees in African nations. She has served as a consulting associate for Equator Advisory Services Ltd., a private firm in sub-Saharan Africa and consulted in South Africa on educational and professional opportunities for black women. In recent years, Tutu has taught at the Universities of Hartford and Connecticut, worked at the University of Cape Town where she was a program coordinator at the African Gender Institute, and she has served as program coordinator for the Race Relations Institute at Fisk University.

Tutu's selection for this honor comes in the wake of human rights violations in Iraq and around the world, explains Chemistry Professor Wilton Flemon, who serves on the Noel Professorship selection committee. "Given those issues," he says, "we wanted to bring in someone who could address global human rights."

Tutu will speak on race relations and human rights at Shorter AME Church in Denver on Oct. 10 and at Auraria's St. Cajetan's Center on Oct. 11. Also on Oct 11, she will attend a luncheon for Metro's African American student honor society and speak in various classes throughout the afternoon.

"We try to bring people in who will show students the additional ways of excelling in our society, apart from sports," Flemon explains. "We try to select national and international scholars to serve as role models, so students can see people who have made significant contributions in the world."

Tutu is Metro's 11th Noel Professor, an honor held by luminaries including jazz singer Dianne Reeves, Harvard Professor Cornel West, pianist Billy Taylor, author Iyanla Vanzant, actor and civil rights activist Ossie Davis, and executive editor of Ebony magazine Lerone Bennett Jr.

The professorship was named for Rachel B. Noel, a former Metro State sociology professor and the first African American to be elected to the Denver Public School Board. She is widely credited with launching the city's school integration efforts.