The Centre for General Education under the Faculty of Arts and Design (FoAD) in collaboration with Corporate Affairs at the Durban University of Technology (DUT) successfully hosted the second annual Student Diversity Festival at the Fred Crookes Sport Centre, Steve Biko campus in Durban on Thursday, 04 September 2025. This year’s celebration was held under the theme: Celebrating Diversity Through Song and Dance.

Students were given an opportunity use the creative arts such as music, dance, fashion and poetry, to promote and explore equality, diversity and social justice in society. Keeping the guests entertained and in high spirits were the festival performers namely; Musa Prince Darknight Zondo, Unheard, Unbroken (Thai, MSU), Johnnyboy (Sesotho) and Drama Production (DUT Drama students).

Executive Dean of the Faculty of Arts, Professor Pholoho Morojele engaging in a panel discussion.

Students also got a chance to listen and to engage on a reflective dialogue highlighting diversity, equity and inclusion. This critical conversation titled: “Unity in Diversity or Harmony in Disguise? Interrogating the Politics of Campus Celebrations” was facilitated by Dr Juliet Ramohai, Senior Lecturer and Head of Department for Centre for General Education at DUT. The distinguished panelists consisted of Professor Pholoho Morojele (Executive Dean:FoAD at DUT), Mr Crispin Hemson (University of KwaZulu-Natal), Yamkela Tywakadi (Author, Blank Page Books), Professor Molebatsi Nkoane (Central University of Technology), Dr Anyarat Natheeraphong (Mahasarakham University, Thailand), Dr Hagos Tesfai (University of KwaZulu-Natal) and Mr T Chiwandamira (PhD student in the FoAD at DUT).

Sharing the purpose of the conversation, Dr Ramohai said: “This critical conversation explored the complex and contested idea of unity in diversity, a phrase often invoked in multicultural student celebrations across South African universities. While these events are usually framed as expressions of inclusion, cohesion, and mutual respect, they can also serve to obscure underlying inequalities, suppress dissenting voices, and reinforce dominant cultural narratives.”

Embracing diversity, Dr Juliet Ramohai, Senior Lecturer and Head of Department for Centre for General Education at DUT.

Through this conversation, Dr Ramohai said they seek to reimagine harmony not as the absence of difference but as the respectful negotiation of complexity, tension, and cultural plurality. She said participants were encouraged to engage with both the promises and limitations of celebratory diversity and to explore how transformation could be deepened through critical and inclusive cultural practices.

The Executive Dean of the Faculty of Arts at DUT, Professor Pholoho Morojele was excited to be on the same panel with his former UKZN lecturer, Mr Crispin Hemson who will be obtaining his Doctor of Philosophy in Management Sciences Specialising in Peace Building, at the DUT 2025 Spring Graduation on Friday, 19 September 2025. He shared that Mr Hemson was the person who bridged his childhood experiences with the theories of social justice, hence he became the Professor of Social Justice.

Sharing his input on the discussion, Prof Morojele said: “Diversity should take care of the three phases of human life which is history, current aspect and the future. It should look at how do we tell stories and reflect with life in a way that makes us heal from the past injustices that lack of diversity may have relegated our lives to. How that reflection makes us the person we are today. In that art who do we become? It makes us heal live for now to become the better human beings for tomorrow.”

In closing, Dr Siyabonga Mdluli, lecturer at the Centre for General Education at DUT thanked all the attendees for their contribution in making the festival a huge success. He applauded all the performers for their sterling performances, keeping the guests highly entertained. He expressed his sincere gratitude to Prof Morojele and Dr Ramohai as well as the staff from the Centre for General Education for volunteering to host a diverse student centred event.

Pictured: Performers at the Student Diversity Festival using song and dance to promote diversity, equality and social justice.

Photographer: Mphiliseni Manqele.

Simangele Zuma