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03 March 2020 | Story Michelle Nöthling | Photo Supplied
Digital Storytelling
Universities, non-profit organisations, and community members collaborated in the recent symposium, Scholarship of Engagement through Digital Storytelling for the Common Good, hosted by the UFS. From the left, are Julie Adair (Glasgow Caledonian University), Prof Puleng LenkaBula (UFS), Prof Lesley Wood (NWU), and Prof Boiphelo Marilyn Setlalentoa (NWU).
A symposium that bridges the divide between academics and the community? This may sound like a contradiction in terms. However, this is exactly what the Directorate: Community Engagement and the Centre for Development Support at the University of the Free State (UFS) recently achieved. For the symposium, Scholarship of Engagement through Digital Storytelling for the Common Good, these two units at the UFS partnered to host a truly collaborative forum between international and local academics, NPOs, government officials, and Bloemfontein community members. For two days, from 26 to 27 February 2020, ideas and knowledge were exchanged on how to initiate and sustain social innovation and change.

Speaking on the topic of engaged scholarship, Prof Puleng LenkaBula, Vice-Rector: Institutional Change, Student Affairs, and Community Engagement at the UFS, remarked that “universities are not ivory towers that are disengaged in the lives and the well-being of their societies”. It is for this reason, therefore, that this symposium offered the opportunity to investigate the area of overlap between community involvement, social innovation, and digital storytelling in order to enhance engaged scholarship. 

Communities sharing knowledge

Karen Venter, Assistant Director: Community Engagement at the UFS, explained that ‘community’ not only refers to a group of people in a certain geographic location, but that communities are also formed on the basis of shared knowledge, values, experiences, or traditions. Engagement requires academics and students to build lasting relationships with people in the various communities in order to accomplish shared goals. These shared goals commonly include learning and research but should also span boundaries to cultivate multi-directional knowledge-sharing and even creating new courses with the input of the community. Ultimately, these interactions should enhance and benefit all participants equally in a relationship of shared power – a learning together through true reciprocity.

The second pillar of the symposium – the concept of social innovation – was introduced by Adelaide Sheik from the University of Johannesburg’s Centre for Social Entrepreneurship and Social Economy. Social innovation refers to those products, services, models, markets, and processes that offer effective and sustainable solutions for social and environmental problems. “The concept of social innovation,” Sheik said, “focuses attention on the ideas and solutions that create social value.” It is through partnering with institutions such as universities that these social solutions and values can find a bedrock in which to flourish through the sharing of skills and expertise.

Enhancing digital skills, informing scholarship, and sharing ideas 

Perhaps the golden thread that tied all the elements of the symposium together was digital storytelling. Julie Adair, Director of Digital Collaboration at Glasgow Caledonian University, and leader of the Common Good First project, underscored the great potential of digital storytelling – especially in higher education. Essentially, digital storytelling is a first-person narrative created by means of recorded voice, images, music, and sounds. Participants come together in a small facilitated story circle and share their experiences in an emotionally safe environment. Within these circles, participants then co-collaborate to shape and develop each other’s stories into personal scripts. Each participant is guided in the process to record and edit their script into a digital story, which is then shared among the group, or subsequently with even bigger audiences. In support of this initiative, the UFS Centre for Development Support recently opened a digital storytelling lab. As a methodology, digital storytelling is greatly adaptable to different contexts, giving voice to lived experiences. It is for this reason that digital storytelling is an excellent tool for identifying community needs, enhancing digital skills, informing scholarship, and sharing ideas. 

The success of the symposium can surely be measured against the response of the participants. In a mutually supportive environment, new networks were fostered between academics, community members, and NPOs, with renewed hope of finding solutions together.

News Archive

African Student Affairs Conference a huge success
2011-05-24

 
Mr Rudi Buys, UFS Dean of Student Affairs, Mr. Folabi Obembe, Managing Director of Worldview International, Ms Birgit Schreiber, Director of the Centre for Student support services at the University of the Western Cape, Dr. Augustinah Duyilemi, Dean of Student Affairs at the Adekunleh Ajasin University in Nigeria, Dr. Christina Lunceford, assistant Director for the Centre for Research on Educational Access and Leadership at California State University in America, and Prof. Cecil Bodibe, student affairs veteran and consultant.
Photo: Earl Coetzee

The African Student Affairs Conference (ASAC), which took place on our Main Campus last week, was a major success, with two days of lectures and discussions and two pleasant social gatherings, where delegates had the opportunity to get to know each other.

The conference, hosted on African soil for the first time, and co-hosted by the University of the Western Cape (UWC), started on Wednesday 18 May 2011 with an informal welcoming session. Delegates got to meet each other and Mr Rudi Buys, UFS Dean of Student Affairs, explained the meaning of South African words like "kuier" and "lekker'.

The official start of events took place on Thursday 19 May 2011, in the Reitz Hall in our Centenary Complex. The conference was attended by delegates from universities across the continent and aimed to place the focus on issues relating to student affairs in an African context.

Delegates shared and exchanged strategies, ideas and resources, and discussed issues related to the work of student affairs professionals. The conference hoped to promote an exchange of best practice and assist attendees in identifying successful programmes.

Among the topics discussed on the first day, were “Constructing Post-Conflict Democracy on campus: a case study of transformation of student governance and political engagement as post-conflict intervention”, by Mr. Buys, and a discussion on ways in which social and online media can be used to ease the challenges of student interaction, development and support, by Ms Birgit Schreiber, Director of the Centre for Student Support Services at UWC.

A panel discussion, led by Mr Buys and several members of our Interim Student Council (ISC), discussed the specific challenges faced at the UFS.  The importance of buy-in from role-players in decisions taken by University management in order to ensure their success, was discussed, using the UFS and our recent changes as an example.

The successful integration of residences on campus inevitably came under the spotlight and the recently resolved Reitz-saga was named as a catalyst in getting students less apathetic and more involved in attempts at creating racial and social harmony.

Dr Christina Lunceford, Assistant-Director of the Centre for Research on Educational Access and Leadership at California State University, presented a paper entitled A National Approach to Building Capacity in Student Affairs in South African Higher Education.

She commented on the fact that there is little or no philosophical framework or explicit theory that informs practice of student services in South Africa.

According to Dr Lunceford, student development should be a key concern for every department or unit within student services and emphasized the need for a centralized student development unit at each university.
She also touched on the need for institutions to implement support from international student affairs professional associations, professional development for student affairs practitioners, the utilization of technology to support professionals in the field, and working with international partners to explore future opportunities, as ways in which student affairs can be used to drive performance and change at universities.

The conference continued in the Scaena theatre on Friday 20 May 2011, with presentations by Dr Augustinah Duyileme, Dean of Student Affairs at Adekunle Ajasin University in Nigeria, and Prof. Bobby Mandew, Executive Director of Student Affairs at the University of Johannesburg (UJ).

Dr Duyileme presented a paper on the challenges faced by Nigerian universities with regard to student conflict and protests, which often turn violent, and how such violence can be curbed through proper planning and management.

Prof. Mandew presented a very well-received presentation on UJ’s successful off-campus housing initiative, which involves home-owners and business owners in the areas surrounding their campuses.

Their approach demonstrated how proper planning can prevent problems associated with over-population in private homes and conflict with neighbours of the university, usually related to an influx of students into residential neighbourhoods.

This problem is faced by many universities, as more and more students flock to universities on the continent and campus residents cannot accommodate them.

The conference came to a close on Friday, with most delegates agreeing that the exchange of knowledge which took place was extremely valuable.

Ms Deborah Lahlan, of Nigeria, said: “This is an important conference for Africa and it should become a regular event.”
 

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