Dr. Kent Weeks: Trailblazer and ‘bucket filler’

Family honors beloved husband and father with a $120,000+ gift for the Kent and Karen Weeks Endowed Scholarship Fund at Africa University.

“Filling everyone’s buckets” was important to attorney and educator Dr. Kent McCuskey Weeks, 82, who died last July in Nashville, Tennessee.

Eldest son Kevin M. Weeks explained, “My father thought of complex negotiations and navigating different traditions as ‘filling everyone's buckets’ as much as possible. Dad was a big believer that you can find creative ways of honoring everyone’s interests.”

During Weeks’ early involvement with Africa University, he specialized in higher education. He gave structure to the idea of a United Methodist university for all of Africa, crafting the legal blueprint and guiding the creation of the legal entities that remain today. Weeks helped draft the legislation that the Parliament of Zimbabwe approved, permitting the first private university to operate in the southern African nation.

His connection as general counsel of AU lasted more than 20 years. Practicing law in Nashville and teaching at Vanderbilt University, Weeks focused on legal issues affecting higher education. He consulted with colleges throughout the United States, but his work with Africa University was his greatest professional passion.

In 2015, Weeks and his wife, Karen H. Weeks, established an endowed scholarship fund to support at least one Africa University student annually in perpetuity and an ongoing project to preserve the history of The United Methodist Church in Africa. In his honor, the university named the library’s Kent M. Weeks History and Archives Hall.

Recently, the Weeks family added a gift of more than $120,000 to the Kent and Karen Weeks Endowed Scholarship Fund. “We hope these gifts help Africa University students reach their fullest potential,” Kevin Weeks said.

“Our family is grateful to be able to honor him in this way.”

James Salley, Africa University Associate Vice Chancellor for Institutional Advancement, described Weeks as “a trailblazer in higher education from a global perspective, an intellect and scholar” whose “gifts enabled AU and other institutions to move into international advancement. The greatest need at Africa University is student scholarships. A scholarship from the Weeks endowment enables a person from Africa to help change Africa and the world.”

Dream Farm Trust Production Continues

In December 2020, Africa University celebrated the amazing staff of its Dream Farm Trust, recognizing individual and collective excellence and service to the institution, its community and the region of Manicaland at the annual Farm Worker of the Year Awards.

Categorized as essential services, at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the university farm adapted its business model offering door-to-door deliveries to ensure that families retained access to fresh and nutritious food and to also keep supermarkets in the City of Mutare well stocked with farm fresh produce.

Farm activities did not cease and operations continue full throttle today, despite extended national lockdown restrictions.

The farm’s activities in the poultry, wheat farming, and dairy industries are impeccable. It has achieved added value by exploring and upscaling its beef production and butchery output.

Committed staff, major partners and sponsors are the reasons the Africa University Dream Farm thrives and continues strong.

Adapted from a story by Jeanette Dadzie

Africa University Development Office

P.O. Box 340007 Nashville, TN 37203-0007 (615) 340-7438 Fax: (615) 340-7290 audevoffice@gbhem.org www.support-africauniversity.org