81 Author biographies Dr Darren L. Clarke is the Senior Director Strategic Alliances and Outreach at Rutgers Graduate School of Education (GSE), New Brunswick, NJ (USA). He is responsible for strategic planning and advancement of GSE relationships, the development of joint Master’s degree and certificate programmes, oversight of online graduate programmes and eLearning at GSE. He developed and implements GSE’s South Africa Initiative (SAI). He earned a Master’s degree in Student Personnel Administration from New York University and a Doctor of Education degree in Social and Philosophical Foundations of Education from Rutgers University. His research interests in diverse learners and multicultural learning environments has focused on the development and implementation of cultural immersion and service-learning programmes with United States students and diverse educational learners and leaders abroad. In March 2016, he co-edited an international volume entitled Social justice and transformative learning: Culture and identity in the United States and South Africa, published by Routledge, Taylor and Francis Group. Dr Jon C. Dalton is Emeritus Professor of Higher Education and former Vice-President for Student Affairs at The Florida State University. He retired in 2010 after 44 years of teaching and administration in higher education. He is a graduate of Franklin College, Yale Divinity School, and the University of Kentucky. His research and writing focus on the impact of higher education on college student moral and civic development. Dalton is a former Senior Scholar of the American College Personnel Association, a former President of the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators (NASPA) and a recipient of NASPA’s Outstanding Contribution to Literature and Research Award. Jon and his wife, Beverly, have two children who live in Chicago and two grandchildren, Charlie and Alexandra. He currently leads an ESL English class for migrants and enjoys sailing and travelling. Dalton continues to serve as Co-Editor of the NASPA Journal of College and Character and to assist with the annual Institute on College Student Values which he helped to found and which is hosted by the Student Affairs Division of Florida State University. He is also a member of the International Editorial Advisory Board of the Journal of Student Affairs in Africa. Mr Gobena Daniel is a Lecturer and Student Dean at Addis Ababa University (AAU), Ethiopia. His research focuses on higher education learning communities and children- related issues and he has presented nationally in this regard. He is deeply involved in the Ethiopian Psychologist Association. As a member of the research team for Higher Education Studies at the AAU School of Psychology, College of Education and Behavioral Sciences, he supervises postgraduate students who are doing research within the different functional areas of Student Affairs. He has a BA Hons (Psychology) and an MA (Measurement and Evaluation), both with distinction. He is currently busy with a research project focusing on counselling for students at different levels of education. He has also written fiction books. 82 Ms Claudia Frittelli is Programme Officer, Higher Education & Research in Africa, an international programme at Carnegie Corporation of New York. She develops the programme’s higher education research, policy and governance initiatives to sustain higher education reform through external regulatory bodies and non-profit advocacy organisations. As part of the Corporation’s investment in strengthening African universities and developing the next generation of academics as a means to national development in Tanzania, Uganda, South Africa and Ghana, her work has included supporting university strategic priorities in research and graduate studies, staff development, information and communication technology (ICT) and e-learning, gender mainstreaming and community engagement. Prior to joining the Foundation, she held management positions in the global telecommunications and internet private sector in Paris and New York, and served as an advisor to international not-for-profit agencies. She holds an MBA from the American Graduate School of International Management, Thunderbird, and an MA in Linguistic Studies from Syracuse University, USA. Mr Abera Getachew is a Lecturer at Ambo University (AU), Ethiopia. Previously he was student counsellor and lecturer at Madda Walabu University. He is a member of the research team for Higher Education Studies in the AU Department of Psychology, Institute of Education and Behavioral Sciences. He teaches and supervises undergraduate students who are doing research within the different functional areas of Student Affairs. He holds a BA Hons (Psychology and Sociology, 2007) and an MA (Counselling Psychology, 2012, with distinction). He is currently conducting a research project that focuses on student counselling at different levels of education. In addition, he conducts research on learning communities, presents in national symposia, and has published on HIV/Aids. Currently, he has a manuscript on substance use and mental health disorder among university students under review. Dr Mpho Priscilla Jama started her career as a professional nurse and holds a degree in nursing BA Cur (Nursing Education and Community Health). She ventured into higher education in 2000 as a lecturer in the Division Student Learning and Development (DSLD) in the Faculty of Health Sciences (FHS) at the University of the Free State in Bloemfontein, South Africa. She has since obtained a Masters in Higher and Further Education Studies and a PhD in Higher Education Studies. Presently she is the head of DSLD and is primarily responsible for the academic development and support of undergraduate students in the FHS. Part of that responsibility includes teaching in the MBChB and B Med Science undergraduate programmes. She also teaches in and supervises postgraduate students in the Health Professions programme. Her research expertise is intertwined with her work in the DSLD. This follows from doctoral work (completed in 2009) on the design of an academic support and development programme to combat attrition among medical undergraduates. Her current research 83 explores the academic environment, with specific focus on the manner in which humane values are modelled in curricular and co-curricular teaching and learning practices and activities. She places a particular emphasis on practices that often subject students to inordinate stress resulting from hostile teaching and learning environments. Her research and expertise has earned her international and national recognition and awards. She was awarded a Golden Key International Honour, a Fulbright scholarship in 2013 and subsequently hosted as a visiting research scholar for almost a year at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA). She was invited to participate as part of a panel of experts at a Student Access and Success conference funded by the USA Kresge foundation. She also serves as a reviewer for the National Resource Centre (NRC) for the First-Year Experience and Students in Transition located at the University of South Carolina in the USA. Nationally, she has served on the executive of the Higher Education Learning and Teaching Association of South Africa (HELTASA). She serves as a reviewer for the HELTASA conference abstracts and research articles. Furthermore, she is a co-founder of the First Year Experience (FYE) Special Interest Group (SIG) which was awarded a Teaching and Learning Grant by the Department of Higher Education and Training (DoHET) to establish a South African National Resource Centre (SANRC) for the First-Year Experience and Students in Transition. Apart from her involvement in these activities and research in the above areas, as well as the pursuit to publish articles in journals, her main focus presently is writing a book which was drafted during her Fulbright scholarship at UCLA. The tentative title of her book is Towards a humanistic pedagogy: teaching students in complex and demanding academic environments. Dr Thierry M. Luescher (Luescher-Mamashela) is Assistant Director of Institutional Research at the University of the Free State, South Africa. Prior to this he was Senior Lecturer in Higher Education Studies, extra-ordinary Senior Lecturer in Political Studies at the University of the Western Cape and a Senior Researcher in the Centre for Higher Education Transformation (CHET), Cape Town. He obtained his PhD in Political Studies from the University of Cape Town. He researches, teaches and consults on matters of international and comparative higher education, with particular interest in the nexus of higher education with politics in Africa, higher education policy and governance, student politics, the student experience, and higher education development in Africa. He has published in local and international scholarly journals, including Studies in Higher Education, European Journal of Higher Education, Journal of Higher Education in Africa, South African Journal of Higher Education, Tertiary Education and Management and Perspectives in Education, along with chapters in internationally edited books. He is an editor of the Journal of Student Affairs in Africa, and member of the editorial boards of the Journal of College Student Development, Makerere Journal of Higher Education and African Higher Education Dynamics. Thierry recently edited the book Student Politics in Africa: Representation and Activism (with M. Klemenčič and J.O. Jowi, 2016, which is available open access). His publication list and links to open access downloads can be viewed at www.thierryluescher.net. 84 Mr Munyaradzi Makoni is a Senior Journalist for University World News based in Cape Town, South Africa, where he reports on higher education and science. He has been a journalist for more than 15 years. Some of his stories are published by Thompson Reuters Foundation, SciDev.Net, and Intellectual Property Watch and The Tablet among others. Ms Razia Mayet is a Learning Development Facilitator in the Academic Development and Support Unit at the University of Johannesburg (UJ), South Africa. Students who are failing and finding it challenging to cope with university studies are referred to the unit by their departments and are offered interventions and support to assist them to cope with the requirements of learning at university. Razia has over 30 years of experience in teaching in primary, secondary and higher education. She is involved with the research project Scholarship of Teaching and Learning for Social Justice at UJ and in the strategic reflections around the decolonisation debate. Currently she is also part of the University of Johannesburg staff group reflecting on the role of the engaged academic in times of student struggle. The blog can be accessed at http://sotlforsocialjustice.blogspot.co.za/2016/12/ the-role-of-socially-engaged-academic.html. Prof. Teboho Moja is Clinical Professor of Higher Education at New York University. Her teaching experience includes high school and university levels. Teboho has held key positions at several South African universities, including being appointed Chair of the Council of the University of South Africa. She has held positions as Professor Extraordinaire at the University of Pretoria, the University of Johannesburg and the University of the Western Cape, and has been Visiting Professor at the University of Oslo (Norway) and University of Tampere (Finland). She was instrumental in setting up the Centre for Higher Education Transformation (CHET) in South Africa and is currently serving as Chair of its board. In addition, she has served on the boards of international bodies such as the UNESCO-Institute for International Education Planning and the World Education Market. She has also served as Executive Director and Commissioner to the National Commission on Higher Education (1995–1996) appointed by President Mandela. Before joining New York University, Teboho served as a special advisor to two ministers of education in post-1994 South Africa. She has authored several articles on higher education reform issues in areas such as the governance of higher education, policy processes, and impact of globalisation on higher education, and co-authored a book on educational change in South Africa. She is Editor-in-chief of the Journal of Student Affairs in Africa. Dr Willy Nel serves as Head of Discipline: Educational Psychology in the Faculty of Education and as Associate of the Institute for Reconciliation and Social Justice at the University of the Free State, South Africa. His research interests in higher education transformation and transformative autonomy of teachers are pursued through a critical community psychology lens. He publishes in national and international journals and has contributed chapters to national and internationally published books. However, he does not measure his work in academe only through the usual routes of peer recognition, important as it is for others, but rather in how much he can do to advance transformation in higher education. 85 Dr Birgit Schreiber is Senior Director of Student Affairs at Stellenbsoch University, South Africa. Prior to that she was the Director of the Centre for Student Support Services at the University of the Western Cape (UWC) in Cape Town. She holds a PhD from UWC. Birgit has published in national and international academic journals on student support and development, has presented research papers and keynotes in national and international conferences and given lectures at the UC Berkley, the University of Leuven (Netherlands), and the University of Oslo (Norway). She was a visiting scholar at the UC Berkeley, where she was involved in their student affairs department. She has also been involved in various quality assurance panels reviewing student affairs at South African universities and has taken part in the national review of the South African Student Engagement tool (SASSE). She has been a member of the national executive of various national professional organisations including the South African Association of Senior Student Affairs Professionals (SAASSAP), and currently serves on the Executive of the Southern African Federation of Student Affairs and Services (SAFSAS). She is also the Africa Regional Coordinator of the International Association of Student Affairs and Services (IASAS). She is a founding member of the Editorial Executive of the Journal of Student Affairs in Africa. Dr Eva‑Marie Seeto is Director of Community Engagement (and previously Director of Student Life and Learning) at the University of the Sunshine Coast, Australia. With over 25 years’ experience as a practitioner and manager in health and disability services, she has also served as a leader in Student Affairs since 2005. She received her doctorate from the University of Queensland, Australia, School of Social and Behavioural Sciences. With research interests in health promotion and student mental health, she is a review board member for the international journal, Review of Disability Studies, University of Hawaii. She has extensive governance and leadership experience with community services organisations and is a member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors. She was elected to the Board of the International Association of Student Affairs and Services (IASAS) in 2013. JSAA 4-2_inside cover & contents_2017-01-31 90 JSAA 4-2_inside cover & contents_2017-01-31 91 JSAA 4-2_inside cover & contents_2017-01-31 92 JSAA 4-2_inside cover & contents_2017-01-31 93 JSAA 4-2_inside cover & contents_2017-01-31 94