Search

The Journal of Student Affairs in Africa (JSAA) was founded in 2013 with the aim to contribute to professionalizing Student Affairs in Africa. The 10th anniversary of the journal is a good occasion to ask in what ways the editors of the journal think they have contributed to achieving this aim, and what their vision for the future of such contribution is? Using four reflective accounts of six editors of the journal, this article analyses the editors’ reflections on their professional pathways and the role the journal played in them; how they contribute to the professional development of their emerging and established peers by means of their editorship; the challenges they encounter and lessons they have learned; and the visions they have for the future of the journal. By applying Evett’s notions of professionalism, the article shows different types of professionalism signified in the reflective accounts. It finds that the agency of the editors combines standards, ethics, and operating procedures of publishing ‘from outside’ with principles and commitments indigenous to African Student Affairs. In this regard, the JSAA-led professionalization process combines both elements of professionalism ‘from within’ and ‘from outside’. It further highlights commitments of the editors to wellbeing (of students, staff, and communities), professional development and ‘excellence’, deliberate inclusivity and social justice, and a focus on relevance in the African Student Affairs context.

In many countries and universities, students engage in activities to promote social justice through inclusion, diversity, epistemic freedom and decolonisation, paying renewed attention to intersectionalities of race/ethnicity, class, gender and sexuality. In this special issue, we seek to focus on the translocal dimensions of student activism for equality and greater social justice. We understand ‘activism’ quite broadly to include student-led activities – ranging from small-scale mundane initiatives to large-scale protest events – that aim to change everyday life, practices or norms at the university and beyond. Students’ activist engagement is often shaped in and through translocal/ transnational/international/global spaces in which geo-political imaginaries, academic theories, actionable knowledge or symbols, hashtags, materiality and people circulate and move across socio-political contexts. Struggles are connected across multiple scales, and partially common worlds and horizons are created.

The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are a worldwide commitment to a set of ambitious goals that advance sustainable social justice across the globe. Higher education (HE), while featuring in SDG 4: Quality Education, needs to occupy a bolder and more explicit position in the formulation of the SDGs and in their attainment, not only as an instrument toward the achievement of the SDGs but also in the sociocultural consciousness of countries towards a more sustainable and socially just world. Engaging with students in HE around these issues plays a vital role. Given Student Affairs and Services' (SAS) role and position in terms of support and development of students worldwide, it is a key player in supporting HE to become a more effective instrument in advancing the SDGs and in advancing students' attitudes and commitment to SDGs. To explore how SAS can play a more impactful role in advancing the SDGs and SAS' role in and contribution to SDGs around the world, we researched SAS practitioners' awareness of and engagement with SDGs. To collect data, we used a survey with open and closed questions via snowball sampling with self-selected participants from fifty-three countries (N=318). The results of our study suggest that SAS practitioners engage with and utilize the SDGs in a variety of ways across the globe, thus contributing to the role HE plays in advancing SDGs. In exploring the patterns, it emerges that SAS in the Global South (GS) and Global North (GN) engage differently with the SDGs. According to the results of our study, SAS in the GS appears to have more awareness of, engage more deliberately with, and use the SDGs more broadly in their work with students. While there are different trends on the role SDGs play across the global HE sector, the consensus seems to be around the need to discuss and engage with the SDGs more deeply, at curricular and co-curricular levels in higher education. Our research suggests that HE and SAS can do much more to generate awareness of SDGs, particularly in the GN.