From Conservation to the Classroom: Hendri Coetzee

By: Nesrien Abdelkader

@NesrienAshraf 

After working in the wild and saving an endangered bird species, one of AUC’s newest faculty, South African Hendri Coetzee has moved to conquering the hearts and minds of students in the classroom.

Prior to his current position as a community psychology professor, Coetzee worked as a wildlife conservationist, park ranger and researcher. In his youth, he has also had jobs at a video store, a nursery and a hostel.

At one point, Coetzee was even juggling three jobs along with studying full-time to support his growing family.

“I don’t think I’m the type of person that will ever be able to do just one thing,” he said.

Coetzee’s positive outlook on life and warm personality makes him easily approachable.

“Professor Coetzee is one of the sweetest professors I’ve ever encountered! He always tries to be as cheerful as possible to keep us engaged. Many times, he will refer to real life examples from his life and adventures,” said his current student Communication and Media Arts sophomore Zenah Basel.

Growing up in South Africa, Coetzee loved going to Kruger National Park, one of Africa’s largest game reserves, with his family. During that time, he discovered the southern ground hornbill – the bird he would later spend years working to save from extinction.

“This group of birds came and walked around our car. One of them stopped and looked up at me, and there was just this special connection,” he said.

Coetzee decided early on in his life that he would rather work in the South African wilderness, which he refers to as “the African bush,” rather than a typical office environment because he was a very introverted person and felt more comfortable working alone with animals.

Moreover, he simply likes being outside; nature is one of his greatest passions. From 1999 to 2004, he was dedicated to saving the bird that had such a profound impact on him as a child. With that, he has been involved on and off with preserving its wellbeing until today.

However, his fieldwork didn’t end there. Coetzee’s work has taken him around the globe; Rwanda, Uganda, Kenya and Malawi, to name a few.

“I’ve been to almost every country in Africa, as well as America and Europe,” he said.

Despite his long list of travels, he remains eager to visit more countries. Japan takes the first slot on his list of future destinations because of his interest in their culture, followed by Morocco.

His interest in conservation is actually what led Coetzee to pursue a career in psychology. He realized that problems within nature are usually caused by humans and that the only way to really change things is to work on a community level.

“It’s impossible to make a difference on the individual level. After I started working in communities I started realizing that there are a lot of needs and challenges,” Coetzee said.

He found his niche in community psychology, because he decided that working with large groups of people would give him the opportunity to really make a change.

It came naturally to Coetzee to start teaching and he thinks that it goes hand in hand with researching.

“Teaching is in my blood, both my parents were teachers,” he said.

He truly believes in the power of knowledge and hopes to inspire his students to make a change. Working with young, bright minds is his favorite part of being a teacher.

As for his plans while he’s in Egypt, Coetzee is going to spend most of his time teaching due to his heavy workload. However, he also wants to go out and research as many different types of communities as he can. After the semester ends, he’s hoping to help those in need throughout the country.

His mantra is “be the change that you want to see”.

Despite his many achievements, Coetzee considers raising his children to be the most rewarding of all. He’s a family-oriented man, but sadly he had to leave his two beloved daughters and wife back in South Africa.

While he’s loving his time in Egypt, he feels lonely in a foreign country on his own. His daughters even have a countdown for when they’ll get to see him again.

Outside of work, Coetzee enjoys gardening and barbecuing for his family.