Journal of Student Affairs in Africa | Volume 10(2) 2022, ix-xvi | 2307-6267 | DOI: 10.24085/jsaa.v10i2.4363   ix

www.jsaa.ac.za
AFRICAN 
MINDS

Guest editorial

Embracing SAASSAP Scholarship
Matete Madiba*

This issue was initiated as part of an effort to raise the level of scholarship within the 
South African Association of Senior Student Affairs Professionals (SAASSAP). It was 
conceptualised in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. As guest editor, I had 
a number of opportunities to engage with members and associates of the SAASSAP 
throughout the process of compiling and finalising this issue. A key moment of 
engagement was when the association undertook an “identity check”, to ref lect on who 
we are as SAASSAP members. The pandemic provided a time to be contemplative about 
our work.

The “P” at the end of the SAASSAP acronym stands for “professional” as well as 
“practitioner”. The Collins Dictionary defines a practitioner as “a person engaged in 
the practice of a profession” 1. A practitioner is someone who has learned about and 
is actively working in their field. Carpenter and Haber-Curran (2013) raise a critical 
question in their argument for what they call a “scholarship of practice” for student 
affairs professionals. They ask: “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?” (Carpenter & Haber-Curran, 
2013). The point being that student affairs practitioners should fully embrace their roles 
as professionals, as practitioners and as scholars. For SAASSAP members, there is also a 
leadership component that is embedded in the role since this is an association for senior 
practitioners who would largely be in leadership positions in their institutions. Komives 
et al. (2005) argues for leadership capacity and an identity that is created and developed 
over time. It is this type of identity that SAASSAP members should assume – an identity 
that embraces the professional-practitioner-scholar-leader role.

If members of the association are to embrace such an identity, which includes the 
role of scholar, they must then ask: How do scholars work and what do they do? A 
related question is: Is there a difference between research and scholarship or between 
researchers and scholars? A CQUniversity of Australia YouTube video,2 which describes 
what scholars do, says that scholars work in a “systematic, rational, balanced, evidence-
based way” and through “a systematic process of framing questions and providing 

1 https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/practitioner
2 https://www.youtube.com/@CQUniversityOLTv

*  Dr Matete Madiba is research and development officer at SAASSAP and also Director: Student Affairs at the 
University of Pretoria in South Africa. Email: matete.madiba@up.ac.za. ORCID: 0000-0002-6127-8087. 

http://www.jsaa.ac.za
https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/practitioner
https://www.youtube.com/@CQUniversityOLTv


x   Journal of Student Affairs in Africa | Volume 10(2) 2022, ix-xvi | 2307-6267 | DOI: 10.24085/jsaa.v10i2.4363

answers”. In this regard, it should be noted that there is no definite distinction between 
research and scholarship: the two are closely related. 

Huenemann (2014) argues for a distinction between research and scholarship on 
the basis of disciplinary differences. He associates research with experiments, “finding 
new stuff, unknown correlations and or causal connections”, and argues that “humanists 
are not in that kind of business”. He further posits (emphasis added): “To be a humanist 
scholar, one needs to read a great deal, think deeply and humanely about it, and pick up on 
interesting patterns or glaring exceptions to patterns commonly thought to exist. It is rare 
to find such scholars” (Huenemann, 2014). 

Huenemann’s argument in seeking to differentiate between research and scholarship 
indicates how narrow the distinction can be. Against this background, a number of key 
identifying features are ascribed in the literature to the practice of scholarship. Scholars 
read, and read a lot, to acquire knowledge about their field of practice (Huenemann, 
2014). I would further argue that they reference their work as they share and publish 
it. They apply their acquired knowledge to their practice and by so doing continuously 
improve their practice. They read classics in their field, as well as newly published 
works. In addition, scholars are mindful about how old their citations are when they are 
working towards publication, whether in the form of a thesis or an article in a journal. 

I want to argue that scholars read for confirmation, confrontation, contradiction, 
challenge, and critique, and that these are the “Five Cs” of scholarship. Scholars read 
to confirm the observations they make and the trends they have noticed. They read to 
confront their own biases, beliefs, judgements, and subjectivities. They read to address 
the contradictions they have identified in their work and the work of other scholars. 
They read to deal with the challenges with which their practice is confronted. They read 
to critique their own practices and opinions; to critique other scholars; and to enable 
their institutions to engage in institutional self-critique. 

Universities in South Africa are challenged to place transformation high on their 
agendas. In this regard, the journey towards a transformative turn starts with self-
critique. Student affairs practitioners should not shy away from being at the centre 
of such an agenda, helping their institutions to change and acting as agents of the 
transformation process. Professional-practitioner-scholar-leaders are required to assume 
such agency in a meaningful way. Grappling with the nationwide student revolt of 
2015, Booysen (2016, p.  2) cites the work of Achille Mbembe (2016) who notes that 
“we have to find for ourselves the vocabulary” and engage in “the task of naming 
and elucidation”, and work our way towards a “sympathetic critique” to deal with the 
turmoil that might continue for a while in South African universities. Though Mbembe 
argues for “sympathetic critique”, what South African higher education institutions need 
more is self-critique. In this context, student affairs practitioner-scholars should engage 
their university communities and lead the way towards the processes of elucidation and 
the creation of vocabularies for self-critique, as advocated by Mbembe, in and outside 
the classroom and at the executive levels of these institutions.



Matete Madiba: Embracing SAASSAP Scholarship   xi

Scholars engage in scholarship. Neuman (1993) argues that to differentiate between 
scholarship and research is like “walking in a semantic minefield”. She describes 
scholarship as an activity that updates or maintains the knowledge of an individual 
or adds to their skills and experience. She further describes scholarship as the manner 
of pursuing a serious, sustained line of enquiry, and as entailing the dissemination of 
findings. In a research project, as part of which she interviewed senior academics and 
administrators, she makes a distinction between two ideas of scholarship, that is, “the 
role of scholarship in providing the context for research”; and “scholarship as a far 
broader notion than research, spanning the entire endeavor of academic work”. Her 
analysis is worth quoting at length: 

[Scholarship] is both preliminary to, and simultaneous with, research. Scholarship is part 
of the whole process of the asking and answering of questions – enquiry – in seeking 
to understand a particular field of study. In doing so, there has to be theoretical and 
conceptual understanding of the area of knowledge being investigated. Scholarship 
involves the ability “to glean information” and to respond critically to what has 
already been done in the field. This encompasses digesting and appraising what is 
already known, as a result of which the gaps in knowledge can be clearly perceived and 
appropriate questions of enquiry asked. Indeed, scholarship necessitates placing one’s 
own research within the existing knowledge of the field. The result is “research in 
context”. (Neuman, 1993)

Neumann (1993) further posits that scholarship entails greater contemplation and 
ref lection than research. She notes that her interviewees asserted that the distinction 
between research and scholarship was less clear in the humanities, with some extending 
this view to the social sciences and professional areas. The participants in her research 
described “poor research” as “research without scholarship” (Neuman, 1993). She 
concludes her paper by arguing that research and scholarship are interrelated and yet 
separate, and that scholarship is broader than research, “encompassing aspects of research 
as well as relating to other areas of academic investigation” (Neuman, 1993). Her 
research confirms that academic enquiry is central to both research and scholarship. In 
this context, academic enquiry is described as a critical ref lection on existing knowledge 
and a desire to ask unanswered questions. 

In a report entitled “Scholarship Reconsidered: Priorities of the Professoriate”, Boyer 
(1990) describes four kinds of scholarship: the scholarship of discovery; the scholarship 
of integration; the scholarship of application; and the scholarship of teaching. For Boyer 
(1990, p.  16) it was time to define “what it means to be a scholar” and to recognise 
“the great diversity of functions higher education must perform”. This remains true for 
student affairs practitioners today. Student affairs practitioners must contend with what 
it means to be a scholar in their roles within a higher education system that faces many 
challenges. Over the years, Boyer’s views on scholarship have received a lot of attention 
and have contributed to a growing Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) 
movement, which has its own conferences and journals and which produces its own 
research alongside an existing “pure” form of research which Boyer categorises as the 



xii   Journal of Student Affairs in Africa | Volume 10(2) 2022, ix-xvi | 2307-6267 | DOI: 10.24085/jsaa.v10i2.4363

scholarship of discovery. The inf luence of SoTL has now become so great that student 
affairs practitioners who fail to position themselves as active participants within this field 
of scholarship are liable to find themselves on the academic periphery.

Meanwhile, Carpenter and Haber-Curran (2013) argue for a fifth type of scholarship 
which they call “the scholarship of practice”. They identify 11 core values that are 
associated with and could constitute a scholarship of practice. In their suggested vision, 
such a scholarship should be: (1) intentional; (2) theory-based; (3) data-based; (4) peer-
reviewed; (5) tolerant of differing perspectives; (6) collaborative; (7) unselfish; (8) open 
to change; (9) careful and sceptical; (10) attentive to regeneration; and (11) autonomous 
within institutional contexts. The authors offer these values as they ref lect on a call 
for “student affairs and academic affairs professionals to unite in service of facilitating 
student development and learning” (Carpenter & Haber-Curran, 2013). The question 
remains whether it is necessary to think of a fifth type of scholarship as Carpenter and 
Haber-Curran (2013) propose – that is, a scholarship of practice – or whether the call 
should be to embrace the scholarship of integration identified by Boyer (1990). 

The notion of a scholarship of integration becomes more critical and relevant 
considering the silos that have been built within higher education institutions and how 
these silos can stif le the work that is undertaken to advance student success. I argue 
elsewhere (Madiba, 2014) that student success is and should be the number one priority 
of student affairs work. A recent report from The Chronicle of Higher Education (2022, 
p.  1) argues that “as more colleges seek to raise graduation and retention rates, it has 
become clear that to make meaningful strides in student success, they must look at the 
whole student” (emphasis added). I have continued to argue in various recent engagements 
that the notion of looking at “the whole student” provides a valuable critique of the 
“single-axis framework” (Crenshaw, 1991) which dominates many student success 
interventions and the siloed approaches that accompany them at higher education 
institutions. I argue that “indicators of student success and the quality of ‘graduatedness’, 
like all the other indicators, is as much a matter of the classroom as it is of organised 
student life outside the classroom” (Madiba, 2014, p.  59). I further argue that “there 
is a need for a deliberate, concerted, and collective effort by all role-players in order 
to achieve student success” (Madiba, 2014, p.  59). With another author, I argue that 
“curriculum learning, academic development and student affairs need to combine forces 
and share expertise and resources to optimise students’ chances of success” (Torres & 
Madiba, 2017, p. 161).

The partitions that continue to be erected between what are described as the 
“academic” and “non-academic” aspects of higher education institutions create 
further barriers to student success, when the goal should be to remove such barriers. 
The building of such walls prevents student from being seen as whole beings. In 
this context, interventions become fragmented, structures work in silos and student 
affairs practitioners deal superficially with the challenges that threaten student success. 
However, the theoretical and conceptual understandings that may emerge from a 
scholarship of integration would allow student affairs practitioners to forge necessary 



Matete Madiba: Embracing SAASSAP Scholarship   xiii

partnerships across disciplinary, functional and structural boundaries and deal with 
these challenges. 

Much has been written about the challenges that students experienced during 
COVID-19, including in relation to their mental health. In fact, many of these 
challenges existed prior to pandemic outbreak, but in a less visible form, or were not 
previously taken seriously. COVID-19 “visibilised” them. Czerniewicz et al. (2020) 
assert that the pandemic as a crisis “has made it impossible not to recognise the historical, 
geospatial, economic inequalities of the country and the world students live in”. They 
further assert that “the pandemic, and the pivoting to online made visible, the invisible”. 
The authors are worth quoting at length as they describe how the pandemic led to a push 
for integration, where previously there had been none, or at least too little: 

During this period, fields of practice and scholarship, which had previously intersected 
far less than one would have imagined, are now thrust together. The scholarship has 
drawn on different theoretical sources. The practice has been supported institutionally 
in different ways, either centrally or distributed. Historically, questions of access to 
and success in education were the purview of “academic development”, while the digital 
divide and digital inequalities fell in the parallel realm of “educational technology”. 
These separations have been shown to be impossible, with Student Affairs thrown 
into the mix as students demand that #NoStudentIsLeftBehind (emphasis added). 
(Czerniewicz et al., 2020)

Though it appears that greater attention has been paid to the pedagogies of care and 
compassion in academia, or at least in some parts of academia, it is a concern that much 
thinking remains siloed and that the need to forge partnerships that may advance the 
culture of care in the academy persists. In this context, Brodie et al. (2022) argue:

Given that the culture of the academy has been that such support has not usually been a 
primary focus of lecturers, we argue for better integration of student support services into the 
core academic project within the broader institution. In decentering this key structural and 
cultural element of the university space, this article has shown that we can support 
multiple opportunities for students to engage with disciplinary knowledge and that 
we can enable care and concern to be integrated into higher education pedagogy and 
thus become a stronger cultural element of teaching and learning in our institutions 
(emphasis added). (Brodie et al., 2020).

Brodie et al. (2022) call for integration. A scholarship of integration needs to be 
promoted if student support services practitioners are to be considered as equal partners 
with lecturers and in order to forge the partnerships that are required to advance a 
culture of care within the academy. In addition, a new class of “scholarly practitioners” 
will need to be established: a class who by their craft make “decisions primarily for 
the benefit of students, relying upon theory and research, remaining accountable to 
peers, providing professional feedback, acting ethically, and enacting the values of the 
profession generally”; a class of scholarly practitioners whose members continuously 
“exercise professional judgment”, as argued by Carpenter and Haber-Curran (2013). 



xiv   Journal of Student Affairs in Africa | Volume 10(2) 2022, ix-xvi | 2307-6267 | DOI: 10.24085/jsaa.v10i2.4363

Accordingly, I and a fellow author have posed the question (Madiba & Mathekga, 
2018): “How well are we able to name and frame the problems students face as they enter 
and proceed through their studies in higher education?” Mathekga and I have further 
argued that the “question should be extended to the policies, interventions and solutions 
that are put in place to support students throughout their academic journey”. The 
broader argument being made here is that student affairs practitioners deal with complex 
and highly challenging problems that are systemic in nature and deeply entrenched. If 
they are to make any inroads, they need to demolish the walls separating functions and 
structures at universities. For this to happen, student affairs practitioners should seek to 
advance the scholarship of integration. 

The call for papers for this issue of the Journal of Student Affairs in Africa ( JSAA) was 
made within this context of asking whether SAASSAP members have acquired the 
identity of scholars who undertake their work in a systematic, evidence-based way, and 
whether they are able to frame the relevant questions and explore the resulting answers in 
a meaningful way. The theme that accompanied the call was: “Leading through Covid-
19: The impact of the pandemic on student affairs and student services at South African 
universities.” Under lockdown, when there were few opportunities to meet face-to-
face, two webinars were organised to support those considering responding to the call 
for papers. The first webinar on “writing for publication” was led by Birgit Schreiber 
and Siseko Kumalo. The second webinar on “writing for JSAA” was led by three well-
published authors, Thierry Luescher, Laura Czerniewicz and Dantew Teferra, who 
shared the tools of the trade. Laura, who made a presentation on collaborative writing at 
the meeting, published her notes as a blog post,3 in which she advised: “Keep everything 
transparent, be organised, give and take feedback respectfully, be open minded, be 
f lexible and be clear.”

The response to the first call for papers was encouraging. Twenty-four abstracts 
from eight different institutions were submitted. Finally, eight papers were submitted 
and sent for peer review. During this process, a number of challenges were identified. 
For example, it became clear that student affairs practitioners who are immersed in 
student-life activities and related crises may be hard-pressed to find the time to write 
for publication. In this regard, it would have been ideal to organise research retreats 
in support of this issue’s call for papers. The authors who answered the call for papers 
also faced the challenge of their relative scholarly inexperience. In this regard, there 
is a great need for student affairs practitioners to be supported in developing the skills 
that are required to write for publication if they are to make advances in scholarship 
and research. Student affairs and services (SAS) practitioners need to be encouraged 
to initiate sustainable collaborative research projects which can simultaneously inform 
policy and practice. Such projects should be undertaken in collaboration with other 
academics and with master’s and doctoral students within and across institutions, both 
locally and internationally. Ethical clearance poses another a challenge. It can take a 

3 https://czernie.weebly.com/blog/writing-collaboratively

https://czernie.weebly.com/blog/writing-collaboratively


Matete Madiba: Embracing SAASSAP Scholarship   xv

relatively long time to obtain, which can disrupt the writing, paper-submission and 
publication schedule. In this regard, there must be more support within institutions to 
establish and implement clear, transparent and workable ethical-clearance protocols and 
procedures. More generally, SAS practitioners should organise and participate in reading 
groups and book clubs at which book reviews may be presented to advance the Five Cs 
of scholarship. In addition, SAASSAP should periodically and continuously organise and 
plan for special journal issues and book projects. 

The scope for collaborative scholarship projects in the field of student affairs and 
services is wide and practitioners are spoiled for choice as the 2021 SAASSAP conference, 
which can be a platform for the advancement of scholarship within the SAS community, 
demonstrated. The theme of the conference was: “Ramping up engaged scholarship, 
gender equity, and enhancing leadership in student affairs practice”. Presentations at 
the conference provided convincing evidence that, indeed, the scope for scholarship 
in this field is wide and that there is ample room for collaboration. Presentations were 
made on a range of topics, including, “exploring humanising practices and humanising 
scholarship”; using Photovoice to document and ref lect on reality; curating experiences 
using the camera lens; student leadership and governance; and community and civic 
engagement. Research into such topics indicates the viability and broadness of the scope 
for collaborative projects and for longitudinal multi- and trans-disciplinary research. 
Engagement in such research allows for the creation of a communal space to explore and 
share methodologies and resources to advance scholarship. 

The future of higher education will look far brighter if SAS practitioners can 
continue to forge partnerships and advance the scholarship of integration. In this 
way, they can make room to assert their place in academia; acquire their identity 
as professional-practitioner-scholar-leaders; and fully assume their roles as agents of 
transformation within their institutions. 

References
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Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. Princeton University Press.
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How to cite: 
Madiba, M. (2022). Embracing SAASSAP scholarship. Journal of Student Affairs in Africa, 10(2), 

ix-xvi. DOI: 10.24085/jsaa.v10i2.4363