Cape Town in November: The Higher education close up conference

The HECU9 conference in Cape Town will take place at the Vineyard hotel, a short distance from the beautiful botanical gardens.

Just before the HELTASA conference in Port Elizabeth in November 2018, Cape Town will host the Higher Education Close-Up conference. Why not combine the two conferences and spend the weekend either in Cape Town or Port Elizabeth? Unfortunately, such an excursion will not come cheap, but looking at the call for papers from both these events, it will surely be worth every cent.

The Close-Up conference will take place at the four-star Vineyard Hotel from 15 to 16 November. The theme for HECU9 is Contemporary higher education: Close-up research in times of change. Keynote speakers are: Prof Penny Jane Burke, Dr Tristan McCowan and Prof Aslam Fataar. The call for papers is open until 2 July 2018 and the conference fee (early bird until middle August) is a stiff R5 600. Proposals should answer one of six questions:

·        Diversity, equity and social justice: what forms does diversity take, and how should our thinking change in order to promote equity and conditions for social justice in higher education?

·        The changing purposes of higher education: a right or privilege? A public or private good? Employability as the mission? Bundling or un-bundling?

·        Policy, access and success: what is the role of close-up research in informing policy making around access to university, more inclusive curricula and finding new ways to help students succeed in higher education?

·        Critical citizenship and critical thinking: in a “post-truth” world of misinformation, disinformation and ‘fake news’, how should pedagogy adapt to support students in becoming more critically aware, engaged, and thoughtful? How can close-up research lead a response to the growing anti-intellectualism characterised by a conflation of expertise and elitism?

·        Literacy: how do new forms of technology, knowledge-making and writing challenge being literate in the 21st century?

·        Imagining the future: more change - what promises and possibilities, constraints and enablings do current close-up research reveal?