Occasional Paper Series

The Engagement and Transformation Portfolio (ETP) office, in close collaboration with the Chair for Critical Studies in Higher Education Transformation (CriSHET), presents an Occasional Paper Series under the theme: The Transformative, Responsive University. This series aims to provide a hub for intellectual debate, within Nelson Mandela University and beyond, regarding the question, not so much what the university is good at, but rather what the university is good for¹ in our time and place faced with, often unprecedented, societal challenges.

 

Underlying the series is the intention to grow the intellectual engagement with Mandela University’s commitment to reimagine, reposition and reframe its character as a transformative, responsive university.  The premise is that universities might advance institutional change by developing constitutive relationships between engagement and transformation; and embedding these across the system. This series is thus interested in reflecting on both scholarship and praxis in thinking through how to engage for the purpose of transforming the University/university in a socially just direction.

 

In order to spark this conversation, the Occasional Paper Series disseminates working papers, original research studies, reflective essays, lectures, seminar papers, speeches and conversations from  university- and community-based social actors and those generally interested in the university as an engaged, social institution. We welcome submissions of writing and/or art. We invite pieces of various lengths, but preferably in the range of 2000 and 7000 words, formatted and referenced according to the Occasional Paper Series writing guidelines, available under 'Submission Guidelines'.

 

The themes of the series are flexible, but some areas of interest are: