PROVIDENCE, Rhode Island (AP) — Rhode Island's Brown University says hip-hop singer Wyclef Jean has accepted an appointment as a visiting fellow in its Department of Africana Studies for the 2010-11 academic year.

The Ivy League school says the Haitian Grammy Award winner will engage in activities related to its Haiti Initiative, including lectures, faculty conversations and classes.

Brown says Jean made his first visit to the campus Monday and attended two inaugural lectures. The 37-year-old singer says his time at Brown will be "a period of learning and reflection."

Jean was hospitalised during the weekend to treat exhaustion, his publicist said on Monday.

"He has already been released and is at home recuperating," spokeswoman Marian Salzman said. "He will be back to work in about a week, and until then the family requests that he be allowed to genuinely rest."

Salzman would not say where he was hospitalised.

The two-time Grammy Award winner has been busy working on a new album and recently waged a campaign to run for president in his native Haiti.

But Haiti's electoral council ruled last month that he failed to meet a requirement that presidential candidates maintain five consecutive years of residency in the country before running.

Jean abandoned his attempt to run in the presidential election, one month after his candidacy was formally rejected by Haitian authorities.

"After weeks of quiet but painstaking reflection with my wife and daughter, I have chosen to end my bid for the presidency of Haiti," the singer-songwriter said in a statement.

"This was not an easy conclusion to reach; but it is one that was thoughtfully made," Jean added.

Jean was born in Haiti but moved to New York with his family at age nine and now lives in New Jersey.