Five academic development programs in the eastern cape province: Reactions of an American academic in South Africa

Abstract

In February 1996, I came to Border Technikon on a one-year appointment as a visiting professor under the Educators for Africa Program of the International Foundation for Education and Self-Help. My major responsibility in South Africa has been to establish a center for Academic Development (AD) at Border Technikon. My background in the United States includes first evaluating and later directing a program for Instructional Development at Utah State University and for five years directing a four-state consortium promoting instructional development in the western United States.

From April 30 to June 8, 1996, I visited four nearby AD programs in the Eastern Cape: University of Port Elizabeth and P.E. Technikon (April 30), Rhodes University (May 8), and the University of Ft. Hare (June 5). In each case I was received hospitably and shown the workings of an ongoing program of academic development. Spinoffs from the visits have been surprisingly fruitful: attendance at a three-day workshop on Supplemental Instruction, participation in two joint presentations on distance education on two campuses, and involvement as a campus representative in a South African Association for Academic Development (SAAAD) workshop. But more importantly, these visits have given me a set of professional contacts that have been invaluable in setting up the AD program at Border. Beyond that, they have changed my thinking. I have seen how the AD enterprise, particularly with the addition of a supplemental instruction program, can combine the energies of both faculty and students to overcome learning problems.