This article seeks to illuminate the deeper and complex dimensions of post-apartheid transformation by examining how University of the Free State (UFS) undergraduate students experienced racial integration within campus residences. Data were drawn from a sample of 17 individual semi-structured in-depth narrative interviews with student…

This article offers an account of the development of student leaders' agency within the institutional culture of their residences at Stellenbosch University (SU). Residences at formerly white universities such as SU are struggling to align their welcoming practices and cultures to the requirements for immersion of the diverse students who now live…

Research evidence suggests that approaches to promote student success in higher education are becoming more holistic and integrated in nature. This implies that not only classrooms and laboratories, but also residences, as informal out-of-class learning environments, can potentially contribute significantly to promoting student success. The…

Purpose: In response to increasing energy demand and financial constraints to invest in green infrastructure, behaviour change energy-saving interventions are increasingly being considered as a tool for encouraging pro-environmental behaviour in campus residences. This paper aims to report on a pilot programme aimed at reducing energy consumption…

The outbreak of COVID-19 and the lockdown measures that were widely implemented in response to the pandemic forced many of the forms of engagement and activities promoted by student affairs and services staff among students at universities to be curtailed or transformed -- at first, so that they entailed no interpersonal contact and later so that…

International higher education research focused on students who claim same-sex identifications in university residential spaces has tended to prioritise the "gay as victim" discourse, often leading to the pathologising of same-sex identification. While there is emerging research seeking to challenge this dimension of scholarship by…

Twenty-two years after apartheid South African higher education is still struggling with challenges around access, success and transformation. Stellenbosch University (SU), as a historically white university, is striving to become significantly better and different in terms of relevance and active role-playing. SU wants to prepare students to…