On a global scale, the 1998 World Declaration on Higher Education (WDHE) calls for national 
and institutional decision-makers to “place students and their needs at the centre of their 
concern”, particularly as higher education expands and improves in developing countries. 
In response to this call, UNESCO has begun to elaborate ways in which student affairs and 
services in higher education can give effect to the World Declaration with the publication 
of the manual The role of student affairs and services in higher education (UNESCO, 2002) and 
the best practice guide Student affairs and services in higher education: Global foundations, issues and 
best practices (Ludeman, Osfield, Hidalgo, Oste & Wang, 2009). This comes at a time when 
African higher education has been undergoing a continent-wide revitalisation and massive 
expansion, leading to the emergence of the first national systems of mass higher education 
on the continent (in a context where, however, most systems remain largely elite, with 
participation rates well below 15 per cent), much and widespread institutional massification, 
and in many countries a bifurcation of higher education into public and private universities 
and colleges, and government-sponsored and fee-paying students (Mohamedbhai, 2008). 

In the introduction to UNESCO’s best practice guide in student affairs, Ludeman  
et al. (2009) argue that in addition to mainly classroom-based delivery of higher education, 

There is increasing evidence that higher education also must address the basic personal 
needs of students by providing a comprehensive set of out-of-classroom student services and 
programmes commonly referred to as student affairs and services. These efforts should be 
designed to enable and empower students to focus more intensely on their studies and on their 
personal growth and maturation, both cognitively and emotionally. They also should result in 
enhanced student learning outcomes [and] help to assure students’ success in higher education 
and their subsequent contributions to the national welfare. (p. iv–v) 

*    Senior Lecturer in Higher Education Studies, Institute for Post-School Studies, University of the Western 
Cape. Email: jsaa_editor@outlook.com

**   Clinical Professor of Higher Education Studies, Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human 
Development, New York University

***   Director, Centre for Student Support Services, University of the Western Cape

AFRICAN
MINDS www.jsaa.ac.za

editorial

Towards a professionalisation of student affairs in Africa

Thierry Luescher-Mamashela*,  Teboho Moja** and Birgit Schreiber***

Journal of Student Affairs in Africa | Volume 1 (1&2) 2013, vii–xiii | ISSN 2307-6267 | DOI: 10.14426/jsaa.v1i1-2.18



viii   

Ludeman’s reference to “personal growth and maturation, both cognitively and emotionally”, 
to enhancing “student learning outcomes” and assuring “student success” as part of the 
purposes of student affairs, points to a notion of student affairs that goes far beyond a services 
model which in its scope and focus is limited to the provision of support services. It thus 
challenges the separation of student affairs staff from academic staff and the core mission of 
the universities, and suggests a model of student affairs which may best be conceptualised as 
“a scholarship of practice” (see Carpenter, 2013, in this issue). Thus, if there is an incipient 
process of professionalising student affairs in Africa, it would appear wise to consider models 
of professionalism that reflect the state of the discipline and best practice as well as a student 
development framework that embraces human development theories such as the holistic 
development theory. Systems of higher education in Africa need professionals who can help 
create an educational setting that would “address the individual’s intellectual growth as well 
as her personal growth to enable the student to mature and become a full participant in civil 
society” (Gillepsie, Braskamp & Dwyer, 2009, p.446).

Scholarly and professional developments in African student affairs 
There is growing interest in professionalising student affairs in Africa. For example, in 
the last decade, academic programmes with a focus in student affairs have sprung up in 
a number of African universities. At Eduardo Mondlane University (EMU) in Maputo, 
Makerere University (MAK) in Kampala, and the University of the Western Cape (UWC) 
in Cape Town, programmes have been developed and are being delivered as part of 
successful North–South and South–South collaborations. This development of programmes 
in higher education studies and student affairs – and the demand that has been shown both 
by students and prospective employers (such as national ministries, regulatory bodies and 
university administrations) – reflect training needs that clearly go beyond the ‘on-the-job-
training’ model that is otherwise so prevalent, and point towards specialised and high-level 
skills requirements entering the profession. This is supported by research conducted in new 
and existing centres, in research programmes focused on African higher education, and in a 
growing literature on higher education and student affairs in Africa. 

The scholarly field of higher education and student affairs is clearly developing – if still 
only in pockets – on the continent. Concurrently, professional associations in student affairs 
are also developing. Among them are the International Association of Student Affairs and 
Services (IASAS), founded in 2010, the Association for College and University Housing 
Officers – International (ACUHO-I), the Southern African Association for Counselling 
and Development in Higher Education (SAACHDHE), as well as national associations 
such as the South African Association of Senior Student Affairs Professionals (SAASSAP) 
and the National Association of Student Development Practitioners (NASDEV). Many 
of these associations hold annual or bi-annual conferences which include insightful 
presentations sharing professional reflection on good practices and research relevant to the 
profession more broadly. In addition, a first African Student Affairs Conference was held in 
2011, which included student affairs professionals from countries across the continent such 

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as Nigeria, South Africa and Uganda. This was followed by a smaller conference of student 
affairs professionals and student leaders from across east and southern Africa in the same 
year. Most recently, some of the associations have ventured into new areas: publishing and 
training (with regard to the latter, see Dunn & Dunkel, 2013, in this issue). 

JSAA launch issue: The professionalisation of student affairs in Africa
It is within this context that the Journal of Student Affairs in Africa (JSAA) has been established 
as a platform for critically engaging with these developments by means of encouraging, 
supporting and disseminating high quality research and professional reflection from a 
diversity of national and institutional contexts. The JSAA is an independent, international, 
peer-reviewed, multi-disciplinary academic journal, established to serve the broad range of 
associations and professionals, institutions, centres and individual academics and researchers 
in the field. The JSAA publishes scholarly research and reflective-practitioner discussions 
about the theory and practice of student affairs in African higher education. It ultimately 
strives to become the foremost scholarly and professional journal dealing with the theory 
and practice of the student affairs domain in higher education on the African continent. 
As such it will be an indispensible resource for the executive leadership of universities 
and colleges dealing with student affairs, deans of students and other senior student affairs 
professionals, as well as institutional researchers, academics and students focused on the field 
of higher education studies and student affairs. 

In the call for papers for the launch double issue of the JSAA, contributors were 
invited to engage with questions around the incipient professionalisation of student affairs 
in Africa. Specifically invited were critical contributions engaging with the notion of 
professionalisation, professionalism, and their meanings in relation to the practice of student 
affairs; explorations of the nexus of student affairs theory, policy and practice in the African 
context; explorations of theory development, professional trends and academic programmes 
related to student affairs in Africa; conceptual discussions of student development, and 
key enablers and inhibitors of student development in Africa; as well as case studies of 
innovative practices in student affairs in African higher education and related relevant 
contexts, and high level reflective practitioner accounts. 

The response has been both overwhelmingly positive and expectedly skewed. The 
skewness relates mainly to the institutional location of authors. Some of the authors are 
located in American universities, but have spent time in Africa conducting research on 
student-related issues, whilst others are located in Africa but mainly in South Africa. This has 
been expected not only due to the institutional location of most of the founding editors of 
the journal (and the invitation is for authors and editors from across the continent to join) 
but also because of the levels of development of the profession and scholarly field in the 
United States (as against elsewhere in the world). To balance the skewness, peer-reviewers 
were selected from the African continent as well as from the international community. 

The responses received to the call for papers and in reaction to the establishment of  
the JSAA were overwhelmingly positive. One of the notes in support of the establishment 

Thierry Luescher-Mamashela, Teboho Moja and Birgit Schreiber: Towards a professionalisation of student affairs in Africa  ix



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of the journal is published as preface to the launch issue: the letter of support by Deputy 
Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Lullu Tshiwula of UWC, who has also become a patron of the 
journal. Tshiwula writes that 

the space for this journal in the theatre of ideas is long overdue, and its potential for growth in 
the intellectual space is immense. (p. vi in this issue)

This intellectual space has now become inhabited by a first set of contributors. 

Conceptualisations of the student affairs profession
The opening articles by Carpenter and Haber-Curran and by Selznick both engage with 
definitions of student affairs as a profession – and find that student affairs does not fit the 
strictures of traditional professions (such as medicine) very well. Nonetheless (and from 
different perspectives), both arrive at the intermediary conclusion that professionalisation 
in the African higher education context is both possible and desirable, and should not 
necessarily follow the American model. According to Carpenter and Haber-Curran, the 
traditional American service model has resulted in a conceptual separation of student 
affairs from the academic core mission of universities, which ought to be avoided in the 
African context. Rather, by asking a series of questions, they propose that “student affairs 
professionals should engage in what can be called the scholarship of practice” (p. 3 in this 
issue): 

What if student affairs professionals fully embraced a role as practitioner-scholars engaging in 
practice in a thoughtful and intentional way that is both informed by research and informs 
research? (Komives, 1998)

What if the notion of scholarship expanded beyond just the scholarship of discovery to also 
include the scholarship of integration, application, and teaching and learning as argued by 
Boyer? (1990)

And what if student affairs practice were approached interdependently with academic faculties 
and departments rather than independently or dependently?  

In elaborating their conception of what constitutes a scholarship of practice, Carpenter and 
Haber-Curran illustrate ways in which professional associations, professional preparation 
programmes (such as those mentioned above) and professional/scholarly publications like  
the JSAA can infuse scholarly values in professional practice.

Selznick’s focus on how best to professionalise student affairs leads him to a close 
examination of the work of Noordegraaf on professional development with reference 
to the notions of ‘constructed professionalism’, ‘practices-in-transition’ and ‘hybrid 
professionalism’. They conceive of professionalisation as a dynamic, evolving and contingent 
process that involves an intentional, flexible and reflective application of theory in practice, 
in a context of empirical and normative complexity and ambiguity. Selznick applies the 

x  Journal of Student Affairs in Africa | Volume 1 (1&2) 2013, vii–xiii | DOI: 10.14426/jsaa.v1i1-2.18



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proposed professionalisation model in suggestive ways to career counselling and distance 
education, as two functional areas which respectively hold opportunities for adaptation and 
collaboration. He concludes on a high note:

African practitioners trained to be adaptive and collaborative may very well chart courses that 
will inspire the international student affairs community to reinvent practices in the name of 
greater student success and access. (p. 20 in this issue)

How to enhance the professionalisation of student affairs is approached in different ways 
by the articles of Gansemer-Topf, and Dunn and Dunkel. The former proposes assessment, 
i.e. the formalised process “to gather, analyse, and interpret evidence which describes 
institutional, departmental, divisional or agency effectiveness” (Upcraft & Schuh, 1996 
in Gansemer-Topf, 2013, in this issue), as “a critical component in raising the stature of 
student affairs professionalism”. Thus, while practices such as assessment are performed in 
the first place as a means to show accountability and suggest improvements, they play an 
important role in establishing the legitimacy of the profession in the eyes of internal and 
external stakeholders. 

The latter article by Dunn and Dunkel reports on the different models of competencies 
for student housing officers and the establishment of the Southern African Student 
Housing Training Institute. It demonstrates, by way of a very practical example, how the 
professionalisation of student affairs can be enhanced through competency development and 
international collaboration facilitated by a professional association, in this case the ACUHO-I. 

As noted above, the professionalisation of student affairs in Africa comes in a context 
of the rapid expansion of access opportunities which poses additional challenges to student 
affairs professionals. The article by Yakaboski and Birnbaum elaborates on the variety of 
challenges higher education institutions face as they expand and try to provide access to 
masses of students in one particular country, Kenya. The challenges range from a lack of 
professional training to problems with leadership in the institutions, and therefore beg for 
more training and professionalisation of the services to be provided in order to address 
problems that are unique to a university located on the African continent and the country’s 
cultural and historical legacies and practices. 

This issue’s thematic engagement with “the professionalisation of student affairs in 
Africa” is concluded with the reflections of a former student leader from the University of 
Cape Town, Thami Ledwaba, on the contribution of student affairs to student life, student 
leadership, higher education and society.

Beyond the profession: Researching student affairs in Africa
Gyampo’s research article on student activism and its contribution to the quality of 
democracy in Ghana shifts the focus from looking inward at student affairs as a profession 
to the big picture of the relationship between higher education and democratisation 
in Africa. Gyampo’s article shows the changing dynamic between student activism and 
democratisation from confrontation to dialogue, and its changing organisational form, 

Thierry Luescher-Mamashela, Teboho Moja and Birgit Schreiber: Towards a professionalisation of student affairs in Africa  xi



xii   

which has become aligned to Ghanaian multipartyism. Research into students’ political 
engagement on and off campus has come into focus in African higher education with the 
understanding that student engagement with democracy, diversity and social justice is an 
important part of the university’s civic role and contribution to the attainment of graduate 
attributes related to citizenship. 

The article by Gyampo is a good example of research conducted in the field of higher 
education studies which is relevant to student affairs. Its publication in the launch issue 
also illustrates our commitment as an Editorial Team to publish articles that fall within 
the journal’s scope and that pass the journal’s rigorous processes of editorial vetting and 
double-blind peer review as soon as they are ready, even if they do not directly relate to the 
thematic core of the issue. While the JSAA will typically have a thematic core, there will be 
articles in every issue – research articles, reflective practitioner accounts, and book reviews 
– that respond more broadly to the interests of authors and readers. 

The book reviews chosen for this issue also reflect diverse themes. Fourie reviews 
Williams’ Strategic diversity leadership; Activating change and transformation in higher education and 
emphasises the book’s value in terms of straddling the theoretical domain of diversity while 
also engaging with practical challenges around implementation and experiences. Bozalek 
reviews Beyond inclusion: The practice of equal access in Indian higher education. She highlights the 
book’s significance in terms of filling the “gap in knowledge about the intersection between 
social justice and higher education” (p. 81 in this issue). She highlights the critique of  ‘skills 
development’ as a response to access issues, as seen in the chapter by Zacharias in the book, 
which is a chronic issue that student affairs needs to grapple with. Clearly, as Bozalek 
points out, levelling the ground regarding access issues is about social justice, and this 
book is a ‘must read’ for everyone concerned with its intersection with higher education. 
Lastly, Fouché, a seasoned therapist who focuses on the intersection of career and narrative 
therapy, provides a useful summary of Maree’s book Counselling for career construction which 
illustrates a range of related interventions, theories and practices in student affairs. 

Lastly, we would like to take this opportunity to thank all the contributors and 
peer-reviewers, our esteemed members of the JSAA Editorial Executive and the JSAA 
International Editorial Advisory Board, the layout editors from African Minds and the 
technical team from e-publications of the University of the Western Cape. Our thanks go 
also to the many supportive colleagues we spoke to in the course of the conceptualisation 
and establishment of the journal, and most especially to Ms Tonia Overmeyer who was a 
pillar of strength and a bundle of joy to work with in the initial development phase. 

On behalf of the Editorial Executive,
Dr Thierry Luescher-Mamashela, Journal Manager 
Prof. Teboho Moja, Editor-in-Chief 
Dr Birgit Schreiber, Book Review Editor

xii  Journal of Student Affairs in Africa | Volume 1 (1&2) 2013, vii–xiii | DOI: 10.14426/jsaa.v1i1-2.18



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References
Gillepsie, J., Braskamp, L., & Dwyer, M. (2009). Holistic student learning and development abroad 

– The IES 3-D program model. In R. Lewin (Ed.), The handbook of practice and research in study 
abroad – Higher education and the quest for global citizenship. New York: Routledge.

Ludeman, R.B., Osfield, K.J., Hidalgo, E.I., Oste, D. & Wang, H.S. (2009). Student affairs and services 
in higher education: Global foundations, issues and best practices. Paris: UNESCO.

Mohamedbhai, G. (2008). The effects of massification on higher education in Africa. Accra: Association 
of African Universities. 

United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) (2002). The role 
of student affairs and services in higher education: A practical manual for developing, implementing and 
assessing student affairs programmes and services. Paris: UNESCO.

Thierry Luescher-Mamashela, Teboho Moja and Birgit Schreiber: Towards a professionalisation of student affairs in Africa  xiii