Engaging student leaders in knowledge creation in support of their own leadership development is an important strategy in the scholarship of integration which seeks to promote research-based, student-engaged professional practices. This article describes a strategy for engaging student leaders in support of such development, drawing on the…

This qualitative study explored the benefits of peer group support for first-year South African students who live in university residences. A case study design was adopted and data were collected from first-year students via focus group interviews at a selected South African university. Thematic analysis revealed the benefits for first-year…

The South African Association of Senior Student Affairs Professionals (SAASSAP) hosted a three-day conference on "Ramping up engaged scholarship, gender equity, and enhancing leadership in student affairs practice" at Nelson Mandela University, Port Elizabeth (Gqeberha), from 2 to 4 December 2021. The meeting, which was attended by…

This reflective article focuses on the Chemical Engineering Students Association (CESA) at a South African university, which was established as a voluntary student organisation to alleviate the problems of student isolation and inadequate orientation programmes by promoting student-centredness and development. The article aims to examine CESA's…

The Fallist movements of 2015/16 brought about rapid change to the South African higher education space, which required student leaders to reconsider their roles as agents of change and transformation. Student leaders contribute as stakeholders of and decision-makers in student governance, and some find themselves in a context where their working…

Recent studies on student politics and governance have shown that electoral clientelism (EC) in university student elections is often facilitated by clientelist relations between student leaders and political parties. However, there is a dearth of empirical research investigating the various forms of electoral clientelism, as manifested through…

This article focuses on the behaviour of students during protest action at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN). The objectives of the study on which the article is based were to assess factors that contribute to student hooliganism and to evaluate the effects of violent student protests on the university community. The data were collected using…

This article stemmed from discussions related to residence committee members and their role as leaders within their communities. The ideas presented during these conversations gave rise to a research interest for a conceptual exploration of collaborative and progressive social transformative brokering within a complex context. In particular, the…

The advent of COVID-19 and the consequent imposition of a national lockdown from March 2020 in South Africa spurred South African universities to introduce new remote ways of delivering their curricula and offering extra-curricular activities. Some of these new modes of delivery tended to disadvantage already socio-economically disadvantaged black…

This article offers an account of the development of student leaders' agency within the institutional culture of their residences at Stellenbosch University (SU). Residences at formerly white universities such as SU are struggling to align their welcoming practices and cultures to the requirements for immersion of the diverse students who now live…

In my attempt to adhere to the request that I provide an interpretation of the theme for the session, "Critical Engagement, Innovation and Inclusivity", and cognisant of the primary audience, I weave student leadership responsibilities, challenges and possibilities into the address. Events since the plenary address have however…

The outbreak of COVID-19 and the lockdown measures that were widely implemented in response to the pandemic forced many of the forms of engagement and activities promoted by student affairs and services staff among students at universities to be curtailed or transformed -- at first, so that they entailed no interpersonal contact and later so that…

The power and importance of peer influence in educational settings has been well documented (Cuseo, 2010; Ender & Kay, 2001; Keup, 2010). In South Africa, research supports international trends that student involvement in peer-led activities contributes to student success and ultimate throughput (Layton & McKenna, 2015; Loots, 2009;…

Given the powerful and ubiquitous qualities of peer influence, higher educators have begun to harness this resource in student support and service delivery by using undergraduates as leaders, mentors and educators for their fellow students. This paper analyses data from 1,942 students from 142 institutions in the United States who responded to a…

In the last decade, student politics and governance of universities in Kenya and in other African countries have undergone a tremendous transformation. The unprecedented expansion and massification of public universities, the introduction of "Module 2" programmes, the admission of private, "parallel" and…