International and Comparative Higher Education

Transdisciplinarity is creative human agency including cognitive, intellectual and behavioural activities of individuals and groups. These activities define and are mutually defined by beliefs and ideas, knowledge and know-how, language and meanings, norms and rules, and opinions and values. The cultivation of transdisciplinary projects should embrace these cultural, social and psychological predispositions because they are core constituents of a trans-anthropo-logic. This requires transcending common research methods used in scientific studies and using scaffolding that facilitates agency, and positioning individuals and groups. However, scientists are rarely trained to pilot projects involving multiple stakeholders with different positions. This article explains why trained facilitators are needed to pilot transdisciplinary projects. They can cultivate transcendence and transgression-both analysed by the late Julie Thompson Klein-beyond the scope and purpose of common research methods. In essence, transdisciplinary practices respect different ontologies and epistemologies while incorporating ethical principles and moral values. The cultivation of transdisciplinary projects should accommodate and reduce asymmetries of power between politicians, public administrators, property owners, researchers and laypeople that are shaped by extant historical and societal variables in specific situations. Transdisciplinary projects should also apply multiple sources of quantitative data and qualitative information that represent the complexity, diversity and perhaps incommensurability of intentions, meanings, perceptions and values about specific subjects or situations. This is being achieved by innovative projects that should become beacons for change.

In this research project, we examine how human rights education can go beyond the symbolism and rhetoric of rights and, instead, be understood in a way that critically considers the continued social, economic, and political inequalities that persist. Learning about rights should be informed by the lived experiences of those whose rights have been and continue to be violated. We

The Covid-19 pandemic has highlighted the challenges that present obstacles to equitable learning and development in higher education in various parts of the world. African higher education and Student Affairs and Services (SAS) are faced with a set of challenges that are in part related to the resources within the institutions and in part due the sociocultural context into which the institutions are embedded. It is with this background that this study explores the impact of Covid-19 on SAS in Africa, as part of a wider lens on SAS across the globe. The study was conducted with an online survey which generated 781 responses of Student Affairs practitioners from across the globe, of which 118 were from the African continent. The data show SAS's critical role in mediating the various domains within and beyond the higher education institution that impact on student success. The domains that impact on student success include the students' personal experiences, the public domain, the sociocultural community and familial milieu, and the institutional/ SAS domain. Thus, this article discusses SAS's critical role in mediating the impact of these four domains on the student living and learning experience. The purpose of this article is to discuss the data and to use the data to gain insights into the way SAS has played a role in mitigating the impacts of Covid-19 in four domains relevant for student success. Based on our findings, a systemic-contextual model is proposed that illustrates the relevance of four domains that need to synergise for students to be successful. Our data suggests that while SAS and universities do a great deal to support students in their learning, factors in the public domain, factors in the sociocultural community and familial milieu need to be conducive to learning to enable more student success in Africa.

The Covid-19 pandemic has changed the face of Higher Education Institutions (HEI) in profound ways.  Since 2020 HEI’s have been forced to think creatively and quickly about how to respond to arising challenges of completing the academic year and ensuring throughput and retention of students.  Historically Disadvantaged Institutions (HDIs) have been hard hit in respect of resources and the under-preparedness of the student cohort who are attracted to HDIs to take on the challenge of online learning.   This article uses mixed methods approach, which includes survey data to measure service delivery and an auto-ethnographic approach using the observations and reflections of the author to discuss the impact of online learning and support during the Covid-19 pandemic.   Utilizing Nancy Fraser’s model of social justice, which focuses on the concept of participatory parity the paper will using the economic and cultural dimension provide an understanding of the constraints and enablements th...

The Covid‑19 pandemic has highlighted the challenges that present obstacles to equitable learning and development in higher education in various parts of the world. African higher education and Student Affairs and Services (SAS) are faced with a set of challenges that are in part related to the resources within the institutions and in part due the sociocultural context into which the institutions are embedded. It is with this background that this study explores the impact of Covid‑19 on SAS in Africa, as part of a wider lens on SAS across the globe. The study was conducted with an online survey which generated 781 responses of Student Affairs practitioners from across the globe, of which 118 were from the African continent. The data show SAS’s critical role in mediating the various domains within and beyond the higher education institution that impact on student success. The domains that impact on student success include the students’ personal experiences, the public domain, the soc...

The Covid‑19 pandemic has led to changes from traditional face-to-face teaching and learning to online systems. These changes have resulted in a concerted focus by local and international scholars on how some students are disadvantaged from accessing pedagogy due to a lack of resources and supportive living conditions that enable meaningful off‑campus learning. Simultaneously, disabilities in higher education is getting international attention, too, highlighting how students with disabilities are vulnerable to further exclusions and mental health problems. This article focuses on the pedagogical arrangements during the Covid‑19 pandemic and the challenges and opportunities associated with online and remote learning for university students with learning disabilities. The article draws on the narratives of fifteen students with learning disabilities from a university in South Africa. An analysis of students’ narratives within the Capability Approach’s concept of conversion factors rev...

The Covid‑19 pandemic has highlighted the challenges that present obstacles to equitable learning and development in higher education in various parts of the world. African higher education and Student Affairs and Services (SAS) are faced with a set of challenges that are in part related to the resources within the institutions and in part due the sociocultural context into which the institutions are embedded. It is with this background that this study explores the impact of Covid‑19 on SAS in Africa, as part of a wider lens on SAS across the globe. The study was conducted with an online survey which generated 781 responses of Student Affairs practitioners from across the globe, of which 118 were from the African continent. The data show SAS’s critical role in mediating the various domains within and beyond the higher education institution that impact on student success. The domains that impact on student success include the students’ personal experiences, the public domain, the soc...

In this chapter, we place discussions of social justice in the context of teaching about global issues and perspectives in education. In our use of ‘global’, we refer to the actors, stakeholders and issues that exist and are addressed in global, regional and international, rather than through a lens of national or local contexts; framing issues of social justice in this global or, more accurately, multi-level, scale is what primarily distinguishes this subject from others in the university (Education) degree programme within which it is taught. Drawing on student-level data, supported with prior systematic reflections (Shah et al. 2017), we highlight the pedagogi- cal practices of teaching an undergraduate unit of study, ‘Global Perspectives, Poverty, and Education.’ We describe and analyse some of the pedagogical tensions that we navigate and negotiate as educators who research and teach in areas that entail often-confronting questions of social (in)justice.

This study examined the various types of support areas for international students in community colleges that help them achieve academic success in their studies. The study considers the impact of these support areas on international students' academic success in terms of their self-reported Grade Point Average (GPA) and perceived success using the Bronfenbrenner's theory of human development at the micro-, meso-, and macro-levels. A quantitative study was conducted to measure the impact of these support areas on international students' academic success measured in terms of their self-reported GPA and perceived success. A target sample size of 399 international students was recruited to participate in a hard copy, one-on-one survey. These students were current international students at a large community college in Western Canada. It is expected that this study would help to determine the impact of the support areas on the academic success of international students in community colleges. The results of this study showed that international students' support areas at the micro-, meso-, and macro-levels were all strongly related to their academic success in terms of their selfreported GPA and perceived success. The federal government's strategy of increasing international students' presence in Canada as a way of addressing the aging work force and population challenge in Canada would be more successful with increased investments in these support areas. Indeed, Government rhetoric at all levels and an increased investments in these important support areas are essential in ensuring the academic success of international students, and making Canada a top and competitive destination of choice for international students.

This study assessed the status of implementation of the policies on student affairs and services among state universities in the Island of Samar, as basis for program enhancement. This determined the status of implementation of the following student welfare programs and services, vis-à-vis the policies of SUC’s in Samar Island with respect to admission, career and placement service, economic enterprise development, food services, guidance and counseling, health services, information and orientation service, international student service, research, monitoring and evaluation of student affairs and services, safety and security, scholarship and financial assistance, services of students with special needs, student discipline, student handbook and student housing. The four (4) SUC’s in Samar Island were selected as the locale of this study. These were the University of Eastern Philippines Main Campus (Catarman), North West Samar State University Main Campus (Calbayog City), Samar State ...

The Covid‑19 pandemic has highlighted the challenges that present obstacles to equitable learning and development in higher education in various parts of the world. African higher education and Student Affairs and Services (SAS) are faced with a set of challenges that are in part related to the resources within the institutions and in part due the sociocultural context into which the institutions are embedded. It is with this background that this study explores the impact of Covid‑19 on SAS in Africa, as part of a wider lens on SAS across the globe. The study was conducted with an online survey which generated 781 responses of Student Affairs practitioners from across the globe, of which 118 were from the African continent. The data show SAS’s critical role in mediating the various domains within and beyond the higher education institution that impact on student success. The domains that impact on student success include the students’ personal experiences, the public domain, the soc...

The Covid‑19 pandemic has highlighted the challenges that present obstacles to equitable learning and development in higher education in various parts of the world. African higher education and Student Affairs and Services (SAS) are faced with a set of challenges that are in part related to the resources within the institutions and in part due the sociocultural context into which the institutions are embedded. It is with this background that this study explores the impact of Covid‑19 on SAS in Africa, as part of a wider lens on SAS across the globe. The study was conducted with an online survey which generated 781 responses of Student Affairs practitioners from across the globe, of which 118 were from the African continent. The data show SAS’s critical role in mediating the various domains within and beyond the higher education institution that impact on student success. The domains that impact on student success include the students’ personal experiences, the public domain, the soc...

The global pandemic caused by Covid‑19 has impacted every facet of our lives and challenged service delivery to students within Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). The Centre for Student Counselling and Development (CSCD) at Stellenbosch University (SU), South Africa, is situated within the Division of Student Affairs (DSAf) and the centre’s reflective practitioners had to respond to the challenge of altering services to ensure continuous support to the SU community. The CSCD aims to provide the SU community with psychological, developmental and support services, with the focus on critical engagement, advocacy, personal growth, and optimising graduate potential. The CSCD has been functioning virtually since mid-March 2020. Each of the Centre’s five units had to respond to both the challenges and opportunities to adhere to social distancing and to accommodate students who did not have access to online devices. All support sessions – whether it be academic, social justice, career, s...

Educational managers in tertiary institutions operate basically in four areas: to maximise results, by harmonising immediate and longrange goals; to establish precise goals and measurable objectives; and to evaluate progress toward pre-determined goals and objectives, to organise, motivate, communicate and sh-engthen superordinates, peers and subordinates. In employing MBO the registrar and others in his department would define the major areas of their responsibilities and establish measures for operation. For instance, in the major areas. Thus the three satellite campuses of the University College of Education, Winneba, operating under a common mission may visibly embrace the principle of MBO, for after all, the large number 163 of disciplines and the interrelationship through the division system put the university in a better position to assemble the necessary skills and expertise to attain the mission and visions of a young multi-campus university.

The Covid‑19 pandemic has highlighted the challenges that present obstacles to equitable learning and development in higher education in various parts of the world. African higher education and Student Affairs and Services (SAS) are faced with a set of challenges that are in part related to the resources within the institutions and in part due the sociocultural context into which the institutions are embedded. It is with this background that this study explores the impact of Covid‑19 on SAS in Africa, as part of a wider lens on SAS across the globe. The study was conducted with an online survey which generated 781 responses of Student Affairs practitioners from across the globe, of which 118 were from the African continent. The data show SAS’s critical role in mediating the various domains within and beyond the higher education institution that impact on student success. The domains that impact on student success include the students’ personal experiences, the public domain, the soc...

In this research project, we examine how human rights education can go beyond the symbolism and rhetoric of rights and, instead, be understood in a way that critically considers the continued social, economic, and political inequalities that persist. Learning about rights should be informed by the lived experiences of those whose rights have been and continue to be violated. We

I have often thought to myself, "Why didn't you do this 20 years ago?" Then I look back at my life and realize, everything has always been right on time. There is a saying "When the student is ready the teacher will appear." My six-year journey to this point has been one of the most pivotal seasons of my life academically, professionally, and personally. Dr. Clara Lee Brown has played a pivotal role in each those areas and I thank her for being not only my advisor, but my mentor. I especially thank her for challenging me to be more than I thought possible, to "grit it out" and to "swim in a bigger pond." I will never be the same. I also want to thank my committee members, Drs. Chonika Coleman-King, Susan Groenke, and Dolly Young for their inspiration, words of encouragement, and guidance in this project. They have challenged my thinking about scholarship and pedagogy concerning the English learners in this study. I could not have made this journey without my family. My husband supported my every step including taking pay cuts, working every holiday, and moving away to live in another town, to name a few. He is my rock. He and my children have made this journey bearable by showing up on my doorstep with hugs and flowers from time to time, having dinner with me, and always checking in to see how my studies were going. Finally, I want to thank my dear friends, Natalia Ward and Betty Thomason, for always lending an ear, proofreading, and encouraging me for the past five years. No matter the circumstance, their support was unfailing. I cannot imagine having done the work thus far without them. I look forward to all of our future collaborations.

Publication Year: 2015

Publisher: UST Publishing House

Researching Student Affairs and Services
This book charts the organizational history and provides a general profile of University-wide Student Organizations (USOs). It also describes the perceptions of faculty about their role as advisers and their self-evaluations regarding selected aspects of organization advising. Furthermore, it presents the views of administrators on student activities, student organizations, student leaders, and faculty advisers. This book is a must for student affairs practitioners and educators.

By clarifying what global learning is and how it is essential to higher education, this article considers what global learning provides for teaching, learning, and internationalization in higher education. It demonstrates how the global nature of knowledge and learning in the 21st century requires a re-definition of classrooms and learning environments that recognizes how knowledge production today is a collective, global, and diverse process. The article suggests a number of foundational principles for global learning, including relational approaches, reflection, contextualized knowledge, perspective shifting, disorientation, responsibility, and an ability to navigate the general and the particular. It concludes by revealing how a global learning framework has benefits beyond teaching and learning and how it can contribute to the deliberate internationalization of higher education.

Since the dawn of democracy, South African universities have seen increased access to higher education from African students, the majority being first-generation students (FGS). This increase to access came with challenges of retention and throughput amongst first-year first-generation African students (FYFGAS). Despite these challenges, there have also been FYFGAS who have successfully passed their first year and completed their qualifications. This article used a mixed method approach with a sample of 311 FYFGAS who were registered in a standard first-year course in three faculties at a university in Gauteng. Quantitative data were collected through a questionnaire and qualitative data were collected from individual semi-structured interviews. Analyses included the use of Structural Equation Modelling which provided interesting insights into the interrelations between various factors. Findings from the data analyses were used to create a framework of persistence for FYFGAS in higher education. The framework focuses on the resilience factors of first-year students and the role of the institution in ensuring that these students are successful. It also provides a guide for institutional interventions aimed at improving the persistence of FYFGAS.

This paper reports on a study done within the Learning Development Unit (LDU) at a South African university. It addresses the issue that many students who arrive at university lack the requisite academic skills needed for success in higher education which increases the time taken to graduate. One of the multiple reasons for this is the ‘articulation gap’ between school and higher education in South Africa and in other countries. This articulation gap is exacerbated by the assumption about prior learning on which South Africa’s traditional higher education programmes are based. The purpose of this study is to explore whether learning development interventions can change student attitudes and confidence levels, and develop some of the skills necessary to succeed. The study allows the academic counsellors who provide support a sense of whether their interventions are working. The study was undertaken by analysing student responses to learning development interventions. The data is glea...

Purpose-The purpose of this paper is to consider what factors influence the ability of academic staff to remain motivated and to persist in their work environment during the COVID-19 pandemic. Tinto's (2017) model of student motivation and persistence is reconceptualised to apply to the academic staff by considering their self-efficacy beliefs, sense of belonging and perceptions of career relevance on their motivation levels and adaption to a new environment. Design/methodology/approach-Utilising Tinto's (2017) reconceptualised model for academics, this study provides insights into motivation and capacity to adapt during the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper presents observations and reflections from five academics from three universities across two countries in relation to self-efficacy, sense of belonging and perception of career relevance. Findings-The findings of this study state that self-efficacy beliefs, a sense of belonging and perceptions of career relevance combine to drive both academics' motivation levels and their ability to adapt to the changing landscape. Self-efficacy was influenced by factors such as struggles with adaptation to new online technologies and researching and teaching in a virtual environment. Academics' sense of belonging was found to be challenged in unprecedented ways because of physical isolation and sometimes unfavourable home working environments. Perceptions of career relevance were found to be challenged by adverse developments such as reduced promotional opportunities, cuts in resourcing and job insecurity. Originality/value-This paper makes three important contributions. First, Tinto's (2017) model of student motivation and persistence is extended to examine academic motivation, adaption and persistence. Second, the model is applied to a crisis where staff face greater strain in maintaining connection to their colleagues and their university. Third, the influence of the COVID-19 crisis is examined by using the reconceptualised Tinto (2017) model in the context of accounting, as accounting international student enrolments and associated revenue streams have been impacted significantly more than those of many other disciplines.

The study of media and communications in the global South is limited by uncritical overreli-ance on theories and methodologies from the global North and, as Nyamnjoh observes above, a struggle to find viable alternatives. In the African context, the problem is exacerbated by the stubborn resilience of coloniality and its concomitant ignorance of contributions from within Africa and the global South in general. This has arguably created gaps in critical conversations needed to deepen and complicate insights in the discipline. The necessary corrective, we argue, is a transdisciplinary approach that centers and takes seriously African "schools of thought" and how these relate to our alternative understanding of media and communications from an African perspective. In the African context, research in media and communication tends to highlight philosophical and empirical differences related to key concepts that connect to African lived experiences, including for example, participation, justice and transformation which remain important for Africa (cf.). We draw on these insights as well as the contributions to the current volume to center Afrokology as a transdisciplinary heuristic toolkit that can anchor self-standing African media and communication which resonates with conditions on the continent. This chapter, therefore, considers the necessary philosophical principles or values as well as methodologies integral to Afrokology as a transdisciplinary heuristic toolkit. As argued in Chapter 1, an African-centered approach is related but different from Asante's (1980) Afrocentrism and more informed by Afrokology and decoloniality: It should be possible, however, in what concerns Africa, to have an Africa-centred approach to knowledge production that is driven neither by Eurocentrism nor Afrocentrism, but 19 Afrokology as a transdisciplinary approach to media and communication studies viola c. milton and Winston Mano

This article begins with the proposition that inter- and transdisciplinarity offer an important
methodological grounding for collaborative HE research addressing complex agendas such as HE
internationalization. Internationalization acts as a figure for the ‘troubled’ nature of higher education;
hence we begin with the larger problem, discussing the current crises of disciplinary knowledge as
the background question. We set out a framework for understanding and conceptualizing inter and transdisciplinarity as a meta-theoretical approach that problematizes reductive and disciplinary
approaches, in favour of research and analytical strategies which can work with, and across,
differences. To work further through and operationalize different possibilities offered by inter and transdisciplinary approaches to HE internationalizations, we discuss the use of tools such as
social cartography to do ‘bridging work’ across different disciplinary and theoretical backgrounds and contexts. A non-formal practitioner–collaborator project is discussed to highlight emergent
dimensions of collaboration that might otherwise be overlooked. Inter- and transdisciplinarity
are not pre-specified specialized ‘methods’ but, rather, are orientations that may take reductive,
convergent, divergent or emergent pathways. Inter- and transdisciplinarity can perhaps be best
treated as a problematizing and open-ended methodological approach that foregrounds plurality
and contestation,

This paper explicates the growing interest in interdisciplinarity as a form of knowledge organisation at the University of Botswana (UB). It accomplishes this by locating this development in a global context of a growing instrumentalisation of knowledge, partially occasioned by the advent of the knowledge society. Generally, the paper argues that interdisciplinarity is not some neutral, apolitical technical re-arrangement of knowledge, as often presented. Rather, it is a political technology implicated in attempts to break academics' monopoly on the processes and products of higher education (HE). It attributes interdisciplinarity's rise to the emergence in the 1970s of neoliberalism as a social settlement that privileges market rationality. There is, therefore, affinity between interdisciplinarity and neoliberalism, and it is a relationship in which the former is being deployed by the latter in HE to produce 'neoliberal academic subjects'. The case of UB is presented as a specific case of the general argument that interdisciplinarity is designed to effect new forms of academic subjectivities attuned to market rationality.

This paper sought to evaluate the satisfaction rating of the student affairs and services of La Consolacion University Philippines. Respondents comprised of 1,000 students randomly chosen from grades 4 to 12, college and graduate departments. The areas evaluated were: Personnel, Facilities/Service area and Quality of Service rendered by the unit. Findings revealed that overall, students are Very Satisfied with the quality of services provided by the Student Affairs and Service Department. The Admission Services Unit got an Excellent rating which was the highest while the Sports Services Unit got the least rating of Satisfactory service. All areas under evaluation -Personnel, Facilities and Quality of Services were found to be Very Satisfactory. 79 1) About the Personnel -This category gauges how the Core values of the University are exemplified by the personnel when they attend to customers'/ clients' needs in the performance of their respective duties. This category includes how the personnel demonstrate (a) being reflective in ways that express generosity, (b) compassion and religiosity in dealing with their individual customer/client, (c) being firm and dependable in securing relevant information needed by their individual customer/client, (d) being simple and patient in attending to the individual unique needs of their respective clients and customers, (e) being friendly, helpful, understanding, accommodating to everybody, (f) loving and caring personality that ensures satisfaction of individual client and willingness to volunteer oneself if need be to ensure the safety of others and capable of securing extended time/service if needed; 2) About the Facilities/ Office Area-This measures: (a) if the unit has adequate & suitable space appropriate to the nature of services rendered, (b) if equipment and furnishings are appropriate to the number of students served, (c) if the office / area is well -ventilated & lighted, (d) if the office / area is easily located & accessible to the clientele, and (d) if the unit consistently clean. 3) About the Services the units were rendering -This measures if (a) proper attention/ service is provided at all times, (b) there was an efficient / working system of transaction procedures given by the unit, (c) customers' concerns get appropriate / accurate results, (d) activities relevant to the students' needs are conducted by the staff and. The Likert scale used has the following ratings:

The aim of this paper is twofold: 1) to trouble neoliberal values of international higher education that use it to argue for economic development through the notion of the knowledge economy, and global market competitiveness (Naidoo, 2008; 2010; 2011); and 2) to propose framing higher education for the development of critical beings (Barnett & Coate, 2005), where critical beings belong to contexts with diverse and powerful histories. Therefore, higher education becomes interested in subjectively-framed criticality (Freire, 1998; hooks, 2010; Felix & Smart 2017) rather than ‘objective’ ahistorical critical thinking. Criticality allows for critical beings to move beyond focusing on global markets as a means of development into a desire to address inequalities, sustainability, and social development.

This paper draws on empirical research conducted in a university in Kazakhstan to make this theoretical argument. The paper uses thematic analysis of interviews and reflective narratives from first year undergraduate students at the university, and thematic analysis of President Nazarbayev’s speeches relating to higher education. The key findings, which are that a curriculum for subjectively framed criticality does promote critical beings dedicated towards engaging social inequalities, has implications for how teaching and learning is practiced in higher education globally. However it also has policy implications –specifically that policy should consider the multiple values of higher education for development beyond a free global market perspective.

In this research project, we examine how human rights education can go beyond the symbolism and rhetoric of rights and, instead, be understood in a way that critically considers the continued social, economic, and political inequalities that persist. Learning about rights should be informed by the lived experiences of those whose rights have been and continue to be violated. We use five years of research that empirically documents the impact and learning that took place in human rights education courses taught at the University of Virginia and New York University.

This paper is to examine the critical issues in international and electronic audit evidence. As entities process more data electronically, auditors should consider the validity completeness and integrity of such evidence. Today the development and convergences of information system allow for the saemless flow of information. Paperless environment are common place and in this context auditors gather electronic information as audit evidence. There are differences between paper work and electronic audit evidence. Auditors should focus on security issues by checking if the outsourcer shares valuable data and identify specific, local controls to prevent fraud and abuse especially when confidential information exist.

Globalization has meant that universities are under increased pressure to internationalize through mobility, research partnerships, and internationalised programing. Global citizenship is an increasingly mainstream term being used by the UN and OECD regarding education for the 21st century, yet research about its conceptualization in higher education comes largely from English-speaking contexts (e.g. Jorgenson & Shultz, 2012). This paper presents a piece of an inter-disciplinary, international mixed-methods research project funded through the Academy of Finland and involving 20 universities in 10 countries. It responds to concerns that current economic crises have resulted in an intensification of those internationalization policies in universities that prioritize profit-seeking over those that prioritize ethical alternatives (Khoo, 2011). Drawing on critical and post/de-colonial theories (e.g. Andreotti, 2009), the project considers how, when left unchecked, internationalisation is...