Teaching in an SA HEI brings with it particular challenges for first year students, many of whom are “the first in their families” to come to university, come from impoverished environments where all the resources are spent on getting the registration fees, and may not be equipped with the fiscal and social capital to thrive (or even be) at university (Nkambule, 2014). These socio-cultural and socio-economic constraints may present barriers to ontological and social access, compounding the inevitable challenges with epistemological access (Morrow, 2009) that most students experience especially in the transition from school to university. The majority of first year students thus often feel lonely, anxious, and lack a sense of belonging, often exacerbated by lack of help seeking behaviour and a reluctance to disclose their feelings with mentors or their peers whom they do not yet know. To alleviate some of these stressors, a first-year orientation drawing workshop was developed and facilitated to induct cross disciplinary first year students into a faculty of art and design at a South African university. The intention of the workshop was to create a safe space where first year students could meet and bond with each other and connect through overcoming a relevant challenge together. In this paper we present the conceptualisation and enactment of the workshop as a case study of an arts based pedagogical strategy for fostering belonging.
By creating opportunities for experimentation, playfulness, and being open to the unexpected, led to students building trust amongst each other. Further, by asking students to create something challenging together across disciplines, students were made to collaborate outside of the (uncomfortable) comfort zones, which helped students develop a sense of place and new possibilities of working outside disciplinary frames (Perold et al, 2015).
This newfound sense of belonging was cemented by sharing their work with the rest of the faculty through placing the 130 metres of drawings in a prominent space in the faculty building for the first few weeks of term. Through exhibiting the drawings, the first years’ presence was visually, and physically reinforced, making use of the power of the visual to transform and create inclusive spaces (Costandius, 2021). The paper concludes with a critical discussion on the lessons learnt from this orientation workshop that could be transposed/ applied in various other teaching contexts. We reflect on the ways in which the activities in the workshop and the process of sharing the students’ work with the broader faculty community contributed to the students’ sense of belonging.
Costandius, E. (2021) Visual Redress at Stellenbosch University: A reflection on Practice from 2010 to 2021, in Aslam Fataar and Elmarie Costandius (eds.) Evoking Transformation: Visual Redress at Stellenbosch University. Stellenbosch: African SUN Media.
Perold, E. and Costandius, E. (2015) “Exploring the transformative potential of collaborative art projects in South African Higher Education.” South African Journal of Higher Education, 29(6), 206–225.
Morrow, W. E. (2009). Bounds of democracy: Epistemological access in higher education. Cape Town: HSRC Press.
Nkambule, T. (2014). “Against all odds: the role of 'community cultural wealth' in overcoming challenges as a black African woman: part 2: being and belonging in South African higher education: the voices of black women academics”. South African Journal of Higher Education, 28(6), 199-212.