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Mncedisi Christian Maphalala is the Director of the Centre for Excellence in Learning and Teaching (CELT) at the Durban University of Technology and a former Dean in the Faculty of Education at the University of Zululand. His career in Higher Education spans over 16 years as a Research Professor (North-West University), Professor at the University of Zululand and UNISA and Institutional Researcher at the University of the Witwatersrand. He has also previously worked for the KZN Department of Education (as a teacher, Head of Department and Deputy Principal); between May and August 2015, he was a Visiting Scholar at the University of North Dakota (USA).   Prof Maphalala is an established researcher who has edited two books, and two special journal issues, published 14 book chapters and 48 research articles in accredited journals. Prof Maphalala has presented research papers in various local as well as international conferences, including Hawaii, Austria, Hong Kong, India, Namibia, Kenya and Botswana.

He currently serves as the Deputy President of the Southern African Society for Education (SASE), which has organised an annual conference since 1971 in various SADC countries. As a postgraduate supervisor and mentor, Prof Maphalala has supervised to completion 6 Masters and 13 doctoral candidates. He has conducted a number of large-scale commissioned research projects by external organisations such as the South African Institute of Distance Education (SAIDE), Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) and Council on Higher Education (CHE). He currently serves on the Umalusi Research Forum, a sub-committee of Umalusi Council, on a four-year term. He also serves on the CHE working group on Higher Education Practices Standards, Guidelines and Criteria Development and Quality Assurance Framework Capacity Development. His research interests are teacher education, curriculum studies, self-directed learning, blended learning and Scholarship of Teaching & Learning.

Prof Lee Rusznyak is a leading teacher educator based at the School of Education, University of the Witwatersrand. She has published extensively on teacher knowledge and reasoning, the design of professional preparation curricula, pedagogy and assessment practices in higher education, and work-based learning. She leads several national research projects and is the director of the Wits Legitimation Code Theory Hub.

Prof. Mugendi K. M’Rithaa is a transdisciplinary industrial designer, educator, researcher and consultant presently working at Machakos University, Kenya. He studied in Kenya, the USA, India, and South Africa and holds a Bachelor’s degree in Design; a Masters degree in Industrial Design; a Higher/Postgraduate Diploma Higher Education and Training; as well as a Doctorate in Universal Design. He is widely traveled and has taught in Kenya, Botswana, Canada, India, Norway, South Africa, Sweden and Uganda and is passionate about various expressions of socially conscious design, including Advanced Ergonomics/Human Factors Engineering; Design Thinking/Human-Centred Design (HCD); Designerly Strategies for Mitigating Climate Change; Design for Social Innovation and Sustainability; Distributed Renewable Energy; Indigenous Knowledge Systems (IKS); Participatory/Co-Design; Sustainable Development; Sustainable Transportation; and Universal/Inclusive Design (UD).

Mugendi has a special interest in the pivotal role of design thinking in advancing the developmental agenda on the African continent. He is a founding member and Simba Fellow of the Pan-Afrikan Design Institute (PADI)/Design Council of Afrika, and is associated with a number of other international networks focusing on design within industrially developing (or majority world contexts) including the Association of Designers of India (ADI). He is also the Founding Patron of the Interior Designers’ Association of Kenya (IDAK); a Board Member of Open Design Afrika (ODA); the Special Advisor to the Hasso Plattner [School of Design Thinking] d-school AFRIKA at the University of Cape Town; the Special Advisor to the Nairobi Design Week (NDW); a Founding Professional Member of the Design Kenya Society (DKS); an Advisory Board member of the Global Equality Alliance (GEA); a Member of the International Association for Volunteer Effort (IAVE); as well as an Advisory Committee Member of the International Center for Creativity and Sustainable Development (ICCSD) under the auspices of UNESCO. Additionally, Mugendi is the President Emeritus and Senator of the World Design Organization (WDO) – having been the first African President in the history of the WDO during the 2015-2017 term. Much of his work with the WDO focuses on the importance of supporting the aspirations of designers worldwide in the [industrial] design profession’s collective quest to resolve wicked problems in diverse contexts.

• How can we grow through learning from our past, our recent past — and ‘reimagine a horizon of education outside the current paradigm’ (Nxumalo, 2020, p. 99) for the flourishing of humanity and our world, including our post-human world?
• How can we grow beyond technocratic rationality, utilitarianism, performativity and managerialism to strive toward social and epistemic justice, freedom and transformation of all sectors of education and society?
• What do we need to unlearn and relearn; how do we grow and create – to tap the possibilities and potentialities that exist for a truly transformative and democratic higher education, society and world that remains in-becoming (Waghid, 2017)?

In growing together as a scholarly community, this Imbizo encourages deliberation, critique and dialogue on key imperatives impacting higher education and will be structured to enable such engagements, conversations and creations. The format will include:

Paper presentations, lightning presentations, critical dialogues, workshops, artefacts (posters, prototypes), creative/ arts-based performances.

We invite traditional research approaches as well as critical-creative outputs and papers that could focus on (but not limited to) one or more of the following areas:

• Curriculum Innovations, Improvisations and Disruptions
• Innovations in Learning, Teaching and Assessment in undergraduate and postgraduate studies
• Digital Learning: Hybridity; (post)humanisation; perils and possibilities
• Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in Higher Education
• Academic Citizenship, Service and Community Engagement
• Trans-disciplinarity : Exploring collaborations, transcending boundaries

All submissions must be relevant to the theme of the Imbizo Time for universities to grow up? Envisioning and creating new futures, and widening debates on critical higher education imperatives

We invite proposals of 350 words in any of the formats listed below.

Pre-conference Workshop

• Proposal for the workshop including a short motivation indicating benefits for participants, purpose, outcomes and possible activities
• Duration: 1.5hrs or 3 hrs

Paper presentations

Paper sessions will be allocated 25 minutes (allow sufficient time for engagements, e.g. 15 minutes presentation and 10 minutes for discussion).

Critical Dialogue Session

These 60-minute sessions should focus on current higher education issues that focus on the theme.

Lightning presentations

These are short presentations maximum 6 minutes following the guidelines of pecha kucha – proposals will be grouped together thematically in one session and will allow for engagement and discussion at the end of the session)

Artefact presentations

This format will include digital and paper-based posters and any other relevant pedagogical and curricula prototypes. (e.g. leaflets, brochures, educational games, learning design tools/artefacts)

Creative/Arts-based performances

These performances can include a range of creative and artistic presentations and will be allocated 25 minutes (allow sufficient time for engagements, e.g. 15 minutes presentation and 10 minutes for discussion).

Important Dates

Proposal Submissions closed

Final Revised proposal due date:                               10 November 2022

Important dates

Registration Closes:                                                       4 November 2022

Final date for payment of registration fees:             14 November 2022

In-person attendance:                                                           R2 500

Virtual participation:                                                              R1 000

Full time postgraduate students – In-person:                   R1 250

Full time postgraduate students – Virtual:                        R500

There will be a Special Issue in the Journal ALTERNATION in 2023.

Authors will be invited to submit their papers for consideration through a double-blind peer review process.

For more information, contact us:

https://www.dut.ac.za/Annual-Learning-and-Teaching-Imbizo-2022

Email: LTImbizo@dut.ac.za

Tel: 031 373 2189/6810