A composite image of selfies taken by Council members and observers participating in the historic first-ever virtual meeting of the body on 6 April 2020 due to the COVID-19 lockdown, from left, top row: Prof Eugene Cloete, Mr Ainsley Moos (vice-chair), Mr Charl Cillié, Profs Wim de Villiers, Hester Klopper and Arnold Schoonwinkel, and Ms Nadine Moodie; middle row: Prof Reggie Nel, Mr Mohamed Shaikh, Mr Lewis Mboko, Profs Johan Fourie, Nico Koopman, Amanda Gouws and Aslam Fataar; bottom row: Mr Johan Theron, Dr Tsakani Ngomane, Adv Jean Meiring, Prof Stan du Plessis, Messrs. Jannie Durand and George Steyn (chair), and Dr Ronel Retief.
Throughout we have been committed to our staff, students and communities locally and internationally and have put people first to ensure the safety of us all. At the end of March, an Institutional Committee for Business Continuity was established to ensure we provide the best possible opportunity for our students to complete the 2020 academic year, to build resilience within the institution to retain systemic sustainability and deal with the challenges brought about by the pandemic and the national lockdown as per government regulations. By launching various initiatives such as online teaching from 20 April, we have been able to continue our work in teaching and learning, research, and collaborating in community initiatives.
As a research-intensive institution, our scientists are well-positioned to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic and to address the challenges that our country faces currently. Details of COVID-19-related SU projects can be read here. Similarly, we are adapting in the field of internationalisation by exploring ways to continue to deliver our summer and winter schools and other short programmes, as well as redesigned our orientation programme for international students.
We remain committed to our internationalisation strategy and will continue fostering our relations with all our valued partners by working collectively in developing innovative new practices in support of internationalisation in higher education.
- Prof Hester C Klopper, Deputy Vice-Chancellor: Strategy and Internationalisation
The internationalisation of higher education has become a formidable force for change in the past decade. Having long outgrown its baby shoes of mere development cooperation, cross-border education today involves high-impact partnerships and collaborative research, often with competitive commercial outputs.
read moreAs COVID-19 intensified its grip on the global community from January 2020 onwards, many meetings were cancelled due to international travel restrictions.
read moreFrench business school SKEMA and Stellenbosch University (SU) have joined forces to open a SKEMA campus in Stellenbosch. This will be SKEMA’s seventh campus globally. The partnership, which was officially launched on 31 January 2020, is set to significantly contribute to achieving the objectives of SU’s internationalisation strategy.
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