This article was first published by University World News, 05 September 2020,
By Birgit Schreiber, Lisa Bardill Moscaritolo, Brett Perozzi and Thierry M Luescher
The impossibility of separating learning and development
The coronavirus pandemic has compelled universities around
the world to send their students home – some with little more than a laptop or
mobile phone, data and Wi-Fi access codes, some with more and most with less.
In the switch to remote teaching, universities initially issued well-intended
yet often insufficient guidance.
Over a remarkably short time, much of this has been improved upon. However,
what could not be fixed in the remote teaching and learning model were the
persistent infrastructure and network holes, glaring social-cultural inequities
and social-community environments that are not conducive to learning.
It is these that have made remote learning extremely hard for some students,
typically those from the most disadvantaged sections of society, for whom
university offers an upward social-economic mobility pathway.
The COVID-19 crisis has laid bare the inequities in the global higher education
system. While we confidently hoped that education might be the road to upward
social-economic mobility, the great social equaliser, we are now seeing the
major potholes that lie in the way.
University campuses have been able to level the playing field to some extent –
between the Global North and South, between the developed and underdeveloped,
between rich and poor, privileged and disadvantaged and the connected and
unconnected. However, in stepping off campus and into congested urban apartment
blocks, shanty towns, small town peripheries and rural hinterlands, we can see
how fragile this developmental model is.
The importance of the learning environment
Student Affairs and Services’ overarching function in higher education across
the globe is to level the playing field through a developmental model of higher
education which supports a global social justice agenda.
By promoting engagement; enabling compatible living and learning contexts;
providing healthcare and counselling; offering housing and residence
programmes; facilitating social, learning and personal safe spaces;
implementing co-curricular programmes for students to learn beyond their
discipline to develop as complex, healthy, whole people; by mapping learning
and career pathways and supporting students to overcome their unique challenges
along the way, Student Affairs and Services ensures a measure of equity and
fairness on the campuses of institutions in our massified higher education
systems.
The environmental impact theorists of student success, from Vince Tinto to
Ernest Pascarella and George Kuh, all emphasise the interplay of at least four
influences that impact on a meaningful educational experience: 1) the
personal-cognitive resources of the students, 2)
institutional-teaching-learning inputs, 3) familial-social influences, and 4)
the macro-infrastructure factors in which the institution is embedded. These
four need to converge to support the success of higher education, and Student
Affairs and Services is essential to this.
When students are on campuses a supportive environment is possible, but when
students study on sporadically working laptops in unstable Wi-Fi hotspots, with
power outages and in congested, noisy home environments, then higher education
cannot be the socially mobile pathway that so many students seek.
Basic needs – safe homes, clean water, reliable electricity, healthcare and
social support – are also key foundational aspects of successful learning and
development.
Local, tailored responses
How then should we respond? Again, we see too many divisions and tensions,
fundamentally between collaboration and solidarity versus authority and
competition. Tensions between the power of institution-level knowledge versus
the authority of national regulatory bodies; between the scramble for political
control and imposition of crude uniformity versus trust in the sophistication of
local responses and the power of diversity.
And all of these tensions derail the more appropriate institutional and
community-based flexible, context-relevant, autonomous, adaptive and innovative
responses.
Despite the reality of inequality, learning must forge ahead in the myriad of
ways that our diverse student body requires. We need indigenised responses that
are designed at a local level for each unique situation.
In some regions this means that the best response may be to open universities
just for some students for now – for those who need the campus environment and
infrastructure for learning.
For other institutions it may mean that only PhD students can continue on
campus, or only the science labs can open, or indeed only first-year students
can attend who can be accommodated in low-density living arrangements.
A granular approach is needed, and for this it is essential that local
decision-making endogenous to institutions – within the boundaries of outside
scrutiny and accountability – is accelerated and supported. This should have
primacy over uber-zealous regulatory bodies, attempts at control by central
governments (such as China’s position on Hong Kong) or by national unions (as
in South Africa) or blunt and short-sighted national political decisions (as in
the case of the USA).
In Malawi, Kenya, Bangladesh and several other countries we have seen national
decisions to temporarily close universities down. This is not only a huge
setback for a country’s social and economic development, but also for social
justice in these countries. Education is an avenue of social mobility that
enables disadvantaged groups, particularly women, working-class and poor
students, to leap ahead and beyond.
More than a Wi-Fi hotspot
Student Affairs and Services across the globe has an overarching ideal, whether
or not explicitly stated: a deeply meaningful social justice mission. The
current crisis shows how essential the overall provision of a (personal, social
and physical) micro and macro environment conducive to learning and student
engagement is, particularly for those who cannot count on that at home. Student
Affairs and Services bridges that gap.
On the one hand, the COVID-19 responses have shown us the immense readiness of
universities to adapt and innovate to enable learning in remote ways. On the
other hand, remote learning has been a setback for social justice.
Universities are more than Wi-Fi hotspots for students. Universities are
complex spaces that reduce systemic-social barriers to advancement, and Student
Affairs and Services plays a critical role in this. To advance social justice
for all, we need especially vulnerable groups to access universities and return
to university campuses.
Birgit Schreiber(corresponding author) is a member of the Africa Centre for
Transregional Research at the Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg, Germany, and
vice president of the International Association of Student Affairs and Services
and co-founder and editorial executive for the Journal of Student Affairs
in Africa. She is the co-editor of the recently published Student Affairs and Services in Higher Education: Global
foundations, issues, and best practices, third edition, a 600-page volume
in which 200 authors collaborated to provide a global overview of Student
Affairs and Services in Higher Education. Lisa Bardill Moscaritolo is vice
provost for student life at the American University of Sharjah in the United
Arab Emirates and the secretary general for the International Association of
Student Affairs and Services. She is on the editorial team of the global
overview of Student Affairs and Services in Higher Education. Brett
Perozzi is vice president for student affairs at Weber State University in the
United States and serves on the global division executive for NASPA: Student
Affairs Administrators in Higher Education. He has published three books, more
than three dozen scholarly works and is an author for the global overview
of Student Affairs and Services in Higher Education. Thierry M Luescher is
research director for post-schooling and work in the Human Sciences Research
Council and associate professor of higher education at the University of the
Free State, South Africa. He is a founding member of the editorial executive of
the Journal of Student Affairs in Africa and an associate editor of
the global overview of Student Affairs and Services in Higher Education.
