2019 Symposium
5th Annual Academic Development Symposium
Wednesday, 11 September to Friday, 13 September 2019
"Conversations on fostering student academic resilience in the context of diverse student identities and experiences."
Preamble
Globally, student retention and academic progression have been considered major challenges in higher education. In the last decade, extensive research has been done into gaining a broader understanding on reasons for the low retention and throughput rates of students. Within the South African context, approximately 30% of students drop out of university during their first year of study and approximately 55% of students do not graduate within the required time (Brown, 2018).
According to Brown (2018) “student success” is everybody’s business. Brown (2018) highlights that there is a need for a full understanding and imagining of the student experience, especially on where and when students need help and where the cognitive and affective spaces are that they can get assistance. Brown identifies three critical factors which impact on the student experience and success, namely the personal qualities of individual students, institutional factors in respect of the space of higher learning and broader contexts of the society within which students find themselves. These factors are layered and interrelated through complex interaction.
Student resilience has increasingly become a topical research focus in recent years. Academic resilience is defined as a drive to learn, the ability to work effectively and achieve academic success regardless of personal, societal or institutional risk factors within academic settings. These factors may include a lack of family support, financial challenges, academic stress and vulnerability factors which include gender, race and culture. Students need to be capacitated to identify and develop protective factors to enable them to develop academic resilience and become successful citizens (Hassim, 2016).
Universities in South Africa have implemented several strategies to support students including focusing on the first-year experience, student retention, the enhancement of the tutorial support programmes and a holistic student experience.
This year’s symposium will focus on creating a space for all stakeholders who are involved in student support, including academics, counselling, library services, student advising, administration, communication and digital learning to engage in conversations and share practices on how to support students and inculcate resilience systemically, affectively and cognitively.
The objectives of this symposium are, therefore:
to engage with strategies employed to provide holistic and meaningful support to students
to share ideas, have conversations and learn from fellow practitioners and colleagues about student identity and support
to interrogate practitioners’ understanding of student resilience in the context of diverse student identities and experiences
to share on and off campus practices to support student resilience within the context of diverse student identities and experiences
The academic development symposium will be held over three days, commencing with conversations, workshops, presentations on the digital learning support offered to students within the diverse context of a multiplicity of identities and experiences, followed by presentations and plenary sessions on subsequent days.