Journal of Student Affairs in Africa | Volume 8(1) 2020, v–ix  |  2307-6267  |  DOI: 10.24085/jsaa.v8i1.4178   v

www.jsaa.ac.za

Editorial

Racism and Corona: Two Viruses affecting Higher 
Education and the Student Experience
Birgit Schreiber,* Teboho Moja** & Thierry M. Luescher***

*       Dr Birgit Schreiber is a member of the Africa Centre for Transregional Research at Alberts-Ludwig-
Universität Freiburg, Germany, and the Vice-President of  IASAS and a member of the JSAA Editorial 
Executive. She is a Senior Consultant for Higher Education Leadership and Management and for 
Stellenbosch University, South Africa. Email: birgitschreiber@sun.ac.za; birgitdewes@gmail.com

**     Prof. Teboho Moja is Clinical Professor of Higher Education, New York University, U.S.A. She is alo a 
Visiting Research Fellow at the Centre for the Advancement of Scholarship, University of Pretoria, South 
Africa. and an Extraordinary Professor at the Institute of Post-School Studies, University of the Western 
Cape, South Africa. She is JSAA’s Editor-in-chief. Email: teboho.moja@nyu.edu

***    Prof. Thierry M. Luescher is a Research Director of Post-schooling and Work in the Inclusive Economic 
Development Division of the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC), Cape Town, and Associate 
Professor of Higher Education affiliated to the University of the Free State, Mangaung/Bloemfontein, South 
Africa. He is a member of the JSAA Editorial Executive. Email: tluescher@hsrc.ac.za

Introduction
This issue comes at a time when the world is in the grip of the coronavirus pandemic and 
on lockdown, and when there is a worldwide outrage over the continuous violation of 
black bodies and the injustice and inhumanity inherent in systems and practices steeped 
in racism. The coronavirus and its impact on higher education, on students and Student 
Affairs and Services, and the devastating impact of racism in higher education and the 
student experience and the work it involves for Student Affairs and Services are the themes 
of this editorial. 

Coronavirus
At no time in history has Student Affairs and Services so widely, rapidly and deeply been 
impacted by a health emergency. Covid-19 as the illness is called, is challenging us to 
develop innovative responses to this global health threat while preserving and continuing 
to advance the overarching values in Student Affairs. As soon as students were rushed off 
campuses into lockdown, Corona shined a ghastly light on the pervasive socioeconomic 
inequities which render the educational project in Africa and across the world unreachable 
to many. Universities are unequally equipped to offer equitable learning experiences to 
all in the best of times.  As much as the same are challenged to deliver functional online 
and blended learning and development experiences even under normal circumstances, 
the migration to emergency remote teaching and service provision has thrown open even 
deeper fissures. 

https://doi.org/10.24085/jsaa.v8i1.4178
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vi   Journal of Student Affairs in Africa | Volume 8(1) 2020, v-ix  |  2307-6267  |  DOI: 10.24085/jsaa.v8i1.4178

What can be offered on campus with its superior infrastructure and facilities is far 
from the conditions that many students are faced with in remote locations at home. 
Much that determines connectivity here is far beyond the reach of a university’s ability to 
mitigate and ameliorate. And if infrastructure, technological, and personal device and data 
challenges were not enough, there is naturally a greatly uneven readiness of Student Affairs 
and teaching staff to engage in and offer emergency remote development and support. To 
adjust from face-to-face teaching, learning and support to online provision is a significant 
challenge of adjustment (not only academic, but also social, familial and economic). Student 
Affairs finds itself at the centre of the challenge, but at a periphery of being able to mitigate 
it, even though Student Affairs is precisely the best equipped and positioned to assist with 
such adjustments. 

Student Affairs professionals became the essential service providers in higher education 
as they continued to work on making sure students were safe while their academics were in 
progress remotely.  They had to make sure that students move out of residences, travel home 
nationally and internationally, and that Student Affairs remain in contact with them and 
provide all kinds of services while working remotely.

In the time of crisis, Student Affairs is needed more and different services are required 
of its essential workers. Yet, how can we develop graduate attributes, diversity and leadership 
competencies, enhance student engagement and promote social justice values on the 
remote? How can we support those students who are in greatest need of support: differently 
abled students, students with mental and physical health challenges, students impacted by 
gender violence, students who face alienation and have epistemological access challenges, 
first-year students, first generation students and students with severe financial problems, and 
so forth. How can we empower our students when many are excluded from learning or are 
attempting to learn and develop in quite unconducive conditions?

These questions and many more will be discussed in depth and across many different 
countries and institutional contexts in our Special Covid-19 Issue, Vol. 9 Issue 1. We 
will focus on the impact of Corona and the Covid-19 pandemic, as announced in the 
call for papers that we issued in March 2020 and which closed in May 2020. Set aside 
the challenges and tragedies that define the pandemic, it has been incredible to receive 
112 submissions of proposals in response to this call from Student Affairs practitioners and 
researchers in13 African countries (and others from across the globe). It has been painful 
and rewarding to select from these submissions 30 proposals to accept, of which we hope 
to publish at least fifteen fully developed and peer-reviewed papers in the special issue.  
To us, the response to this call evidences that Africa’s Student Affairs has been moved to 
action and risen to respond to this challenge like never before. 

#BlackLivesMatter
At the heart of Student Affairs work are the principles of diversity, equity, redress, social 
justice and inclusivity, which express themselves in our practices to give every student 
– irrespective of their race, gender, class, religion, ability, sexual orientation, ethnicity or 
nationality – a fair chance to succeed in their educational aspirations and develop into 

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Birgit Schreiber,  Teboho Moja & Thierry M. Luescher: Racism and Corona: Two Viruses …   vii

well-rounded citizens. Our anti-discrimination and diversity work would not be necessary, 
was it not that racism, sexism and so forth also infiltrate higher education. 

The police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, USA, on 25 May 2020 led to 
a global outrage against the use of excessive force by police officers – particularly against 
black suspects. The #BlackLivesMatter movement has given much energy, inspiration 
and momentum to the demonstrations against police violence. In Africa, the wave of 
demonstrations has been linked with an outcry against police brutality during the Covid-19 
lockdown in a number of countries. In South Africa alone, at least 10 people have died at 
the hands of law enforcement, typically in poor, black communities. At the same time, there 
are reports of spikes in gender-based violence and femicide across Africa. Irrespective of 
lockdown, from Lagos to Mombasa, from Alexandria to Cape Town, students are taking up 
these social justice issues more forcefully and widespread than we have ever seen.

Student Affairs is part of these movements not only to assist students in impacting 
history and changing social and academic systems in effective ways, but also that 
participation in these movements become opportunities to empower our students as agents 
of social justice once they leave higher education. At the same time, similar issues have to 
be addressed within our institutions as students have called for the decolonization of higher 
education, which is a call to end racism in its various forms. Like the coronavirus, so must 
the scourges of racism and tribalism, sexism and homophobia, religious intolerance and 
classist discrimination spur us on to determined action. 

Student Centring on the Lived Student Experience
In our complex contexts, centring on the lived experience of students and seeking to 
understand how different students and student groups navigate their living and learning 
experiences, continues to be a major challenge for Student Affairs in Africa. Only by 
doing so can we collectively grow our knowledge base and develop best practices and 
relevant theory. 

The student-centred development and learning experience is premised on the notion 
of the autonomous, independent student, who takes responsibility for their development 
and self-directed engagement with their living and learning context as part of a life-long 
process. Students are constructed as active participant and responsible members of the 
living, learning and development higher education community who construct meaning 
and relevance in and through their learning and development. The student’s unique and 
prior experience, their assumptions, beliefs and attitudes about the world and the continued 
reconstruction of their worldview are at the core of the student-centred development 
experience. Student-centred learning and development is a recognition of the student’s 
diversity, varied engagement and learning styles. 

This issue of JSAA contains 7  articles which implicitly and explicitly foreground 
student-centred learning and development, and share the focus on different kinds of 
students’ lived experiences. In particular, they study: 

• Students with financial challenges;
• Differently abled students;



viii   Journal of Student Affairs in Africa | Volume 8(1) 2020, v-ix  |  2307-6267  |  DOI: 10.24085/jsaa.v8i1.4178

• Residence students seeking common ground;
• Student biographies;
• Students who become active in protests;
• Rural residence and non-residence students; and
• First-year students. 

The diversity of students, multiple facets of student living and learning, and the complexity 
of different contexts highlight the significance of the notion of student centredness. This 
issue emphasises the vast range of contextual, institutional, social and personal readiness of 
students to engage with the development process. 

In This Issue
Sikhwari, Dama, Gadisi and Matodzi from the University of   Venda report on their 
research of the textured impact of living and learning on their university campus, showing 
that experiencing the university by living and learning on campus is indeed generating 
better results for students than living off campus. They highlight the role of integration 
into the social sphere of the university as making a significant difference in the students’ 
commitment, success and retention. 

Mosia and Phasha illuminate the experience of students living and learning with 
disability and remind poignantly of the persistent inequities in our society and in HE. 
While this is widely documented, as laid out in their literature review, it continues to be a 
critical point in the struggle towards social justice and equity. 

The experience of first-year students is the focus of a quantitative study by Uleanya 
and Rugbeer at the University of Zululand. It is during this period that adjustment is a 
crucial aspect of a successful completion of the first year and the authors demonstrate and 
make specific recommendations around the immense value SAS can make in this regard.

Pretorius and Blaauw in their article on subjective well-being of students add to the 
evidence on the role of context on student experience and conclude that the context of 
where and how a student is able to live and learn plays a significantly positive role in the 
overall student experience. In this study the subjective well-being of students is correlated 
to the sense of belonging and their academic experience. 

The starting point of Qoza’s article “Choreographies of Protest Performance as 
Recruitment to Activism” is the question, why and how student bystanders become 
involved in protest enactment. Analysing her observations and student protesters’ reflections 
on the significance of “the vibe” or atmosphere, and its co-construction in protest 
performance, Qoza argues that participation in protesting may be more about co-enacting 
a performance – as in joining a group dance – than about identifying with a particular 
organisation’s interests and demands.

Maseko and Stützner focus on the student residence leadership and the research 
questions focus on the collaboration of student leadership with institutional leadership 
around impacting transformation. The article elaborates on the shift towards dialogic 
conversation between all partners towards the pluralistic transforming space. 

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Birgit Schreiber,  Teboho Moja & Thierry M. Luescher: Racism and Corona: Two Viruses …   ix

Masango, Muloiwa, Wagner and Pinheiro present the results of a study done on the 
biographical questionnaire and argue that knowing specific information about students 
very early on their academic career enables SAS to tailor the responses into attuned and 
relevant support, right in time. 

Two Literature Reviews and Two Book Reviews
Following on from JSAA’s issue focused on living communities and residence life (JSAA 
Vol. 7(2)), we publish in the present issue two annotated reading lists of seminal historical 
as well as current Student Affairs literature related to student housing and residence life. 
They were respectively compiled by Nupur Goyal of New York University in Shanghai and 
Christopher J. Stipeck of NYU in New York.

We also publish two book reviews on the recently published book, Reflections of South 
African Student Leaders, 1994 to 2017, edited by Thierry Luescher, Denyse Webbstock and 
Ntokozo Bhengu, published in March 2020 by African Minds, South Africa. This book is 
part of a book series on leadership in higher education established by the South African 
Council on Higher Education. Both reviews describe the book in different ways as a 
significant sociopolitical reflection and commentary – appreciating, on the one hand, the 
diversity of the student leaders and their reflections, and providing, on the other hand, a 
caveat around the danger of ‘romanticising’ the 2015/16 student protests known, inter alia, 
as #FeesMustFall. 

And Finally …
As customary in the first issue of the year, we want to thank our faithful expert peer 
reviewers, without whom this kind of indigenous knowledge creation would not be 
possible. The names of reviewers who helped select the articles published in our 2019 
Volume 7 are listed in our ‘Thank you to our reviewers’.

Finally, we also want to thank the Division Student Affairs of Stellenbosch University 
in South Africa for their generous contribution to making this issue possible. 

How to cite:
Schreiber, B., Moja, T. & Luescher, T.M. (2020). Racism and Corona:  Two Viruses affecting Higher 

Education and the Student Experience. Journal of Student Affairs in Africa, 8(1), v-ix. DOI: 
10.24085/JSAA.v8i1.4178

https://doi.org/10.24085/JSAA.v8i1.4178