​​​Advancing student life and success is at the heart of meeting one of Stellenbosch University's goals to provide a transformative student experience. This can be done by taking learning outside the classroom, exposing students to intercultural engagement and creating exciting global learning experiences. However, in today's world, student life and success have been tested, with new shifts pushing many to start reimagining what student life and success look like on our campuses today.

“With all my old tools and tricks packed up, I was forced to start to reimagine student life and success in our new normal. I would have to say that a good measure of successful international student life on campus today is finding a balance between face-to-face engagement and the use of digital platforms and to still maintain the integration and interactions of student on campus," says Angelo Jephtha, Coordinator: International Student Life and Success at Stellenbosch University International.

We sat down to unpack what a reimagined student life and success on campus look like.

What is the role of a 'successful student life' and in the internationalisation of higher education institution?

The role of, or rather the focus on, student life is to ensure that we provide all students with a “transformative experience", which is one of the core strategic themes of the University. In our capacity we do this through various initiatives, such as the Matie Buddy programme, ISOS, volunteering and community engagement, and through a few short courses – Global Citizenship, Intercultural Communication – which are designed to enhance a student's global learning.

That said, although these programmes may sound classroom based, they are very exciting initiatives tailored towards intercultural engagement and allowing students to have fun!

How did Covid-19 affect some of your programmes and, as the main driver of the programmes, how were you affected?

Limitations, limitation, limitations!

Covid-19 came with a lot of limitations on what we could do. For the most part up until now, we have only reinstated some programmes. Given that a lot of our programmes are dependent on people participating face to face, we could only roll them out this semester with a very minimal offering.

Prior to the hard lockdown, we had already started to get creative and explore a lot of digital platforms, but we quickly realised that they were not well received by students. For example, our Matie Buddy programme was online, but along the line we saw that students stopped showing interest and this affected us to a great extent.

The restrictions placed on the number of people you can have at an event also created problems. For example, if we had to facilitate an ISOS activity we were met with various challenges such as transportation. In a situation where you could transport ten people with one bus, you would need to book two in order to adhere to regulations.

What was the biggest major shift that occurred with the change that had to be made to the orientation and integration of international students into SU student life?

The move to digital was the biggest major shift. Although we were already leaning towards more online engagement, we did not expect it to be so rushed and having to operate completely online.

This shift to online programmes really hampered the essence of connectivity, which is pivotal in integrating international students into their student life and enhancing local students' international experiences.

Everyone can attest to “digital fatigue" because of the move to online, and a lot of connection was lost.

Nonetheless, the move to online programmes has definitely opened up new dimensions of doing things.

How have you managed to mitigate these changes? What were/are some of the challenges you are still facing?

To mitigate the change from face to face to online spaces we started using WhatsApp groups. Although it is still an online platform, it is a bit more personal than email and we saw many students respond better to WhatsApp than to email.

To bring more connectivity when the restrictions allowed, we started arranging small-group bicycle tours to allow for more student engagements.

The current challenges, as we are slowly achieving some sense of normality, are that I constantly have to think about capacity when I plan. The number of students who need to be present – how will the Covid-19 restrictions affect them? For instance, with some of our community engagement projects we need to send our students to local schools and, although the students may all be vaccinated, we might be exposing them to an environment where some of the children are not vaccinated, so yes – mitigating these risks.

With all your old tools packed up for now and having had two cohorts of international students arriving on campus – what would you say is a good measure of success for international student life, and how have you started to reimagine?

Having both parts of the spectrum working together. At first, we only had the face-to-face offering. Then, we were faced with this big task of keeping engagements going whilst working completely online. If one takes the Intercultural Communication course, for example, we will now design it in such a way that we have a blend of both face-to-face and online sessions.

To find out more about SU International activities, visit our website: www.sun.ac.za/international​.​​