Preamble
Drawing on the interrelated ideas of the reparative university, Ubuntu, universal human values and the cultivation of humanity
through community engagement, this conference offers a reflective space to participants to interrogate the role
of higher education in shaping just and humane futures.
Among the questions to be explored are:
- What is the purpose of higher education institutions, and the knowledge communities they nurture, in the twenty-first century?
- How can higher education community engagement promote the cultivation of humanity?
There have been many efforts in recent years to reimagine the relevance of universities. The Covid-19 pandemic exposed our shared vulnerability. The concern for humanity during that period heightened because of the uncertainty about life itself. Yet in the years that followed, higher education and related systems, quickly resumed their old rhythms.
The pandemics of violence, corruption, socioeconomic injustice and inequality, among other dehumanising activities, outside of but also within our universities, continue to prevail. The shallow changes made are inadequate to dislodge the structural inequities and deep dehumanisation that persist in and through the academy.
Still, questions of university meaning and purpose persist, posed by students seeking relevance, educators reconsidering their roles, and communities challenging the academy’s distance from lived realities.
Universities may learn from and be guided by our surrounding communities, which hold knowledge, values, histories, and relational practices essential to shaping humane futures. Whilst we are careful not to romanticise a homogenous notion of ‘community’, community practices of care, mutual aid, informal learning, Ubuntu-driven action, and grassroots organising are longstanding forms of cultivating humanity.
We therefore hope that community voices will shape not only the conference conversation, but how we understand the humane universities of the future. We aim for the conference to become a space for reflection about universities, but also for us to shape our commitments to actionable outcomes for more humane societies.