Abstract:

The paper shares a theoretical perspective and practical ideas for ways in which academic developers can work in partnership with leadership and management staff to respond to the urgent calls for learning, teaching an assessment as a social justice project. The paper is intended to make a scholarly contribution to the theory and practice of higher education leadership and management (HELM). This paper emanates from a larger study undertaken on the role of HELM in monitoring and promoting student access for success at a South African university. The study adopted a critical realist paradigm which transcends both the positivist and post positivist paradigmns. As such, the study applied a mixed method approach and a morphogenetic methodological framework, drawing from Archer's social realist framework/research design. The focus of this paper is on the value of institutional conversations in surfacing the structural and cultural generative mechanisms that give rise to the experiences and opinions that HELM have about academic excellence. Discussions reveal how the limited notions about academic excellence seem to promote social disadvantage, exclusion and marginalisation. With monitoring, evalution and reporting systems and processes adopted as dialogical and reflexive spaces, and ideally by HELM at all performance levels, alternative options for social justice are recommended. This is more so for higher education in the context of the public good especially for emerging markets. The paper has the potential to steer an interesting debate among the audience about higher education practice as a connected space.

Keywords:

Social justice, higher education leadership and management, conversations, student access and success.