What does a sense of public good mean to universities? It is a question that has haunted academic corridors for decades.
The International Conference on Community Engagement in Higher Education, held from 5 to 7 May at Rhodes University in the city of Makhanda, offers a far-reaching answer. This is thanks to some of the most forward-thinking minds in global higher education who anchored the event. They include luminaries such as the Unesco chair Dr Rajesh Tandon, Nelson Mandela University’s (NMU) deputy vice-chancellor Prof. André Keet, Rutgers University’s Prof. Tim Eatman, and former Rhodes University vice-chancellor Prof. Saleem Badat. With them, the conference carried the weight of conviction. Its theme — “Reparative Futures for Cultivating Humanity, Justice, and Societal Transformation” — was a call to arms.
The central argument is as urgent as it is overdue: universities must refrain from relying on citations and global rankings as proof of their worth. These metrics, delegates argued, are morally insufficient proxies for institutional value. A university that publishes thousands of papers while its surrounding community collapses under poverty, inequality, and exclusion will be judged harshly by future generations for failing in its most fundamental mission. The uncomfortable truth, voiced with clarity throughout the three-day programme, is that many universities remain structurally complicit in the very inequalities they claim to study. The ivory tower, it seems, has not yet fully crumbled.
Reparative futures, as the conference framed it, demand something far more courageous than incremental reform: a deliberate, forward-looking commitment to healing the societal fractures caused by colonialism, racism, and systemic exclusion. This is not retrospective guilt – it is a strategy. It requires universities to embed humanising values – dignity, trust, accountability, and restorative justice – into their curricula, institutional cultures, research agendas, and community partnerships. Crucially, it requires institutions to start engaging communities as co-creators of knowledge and meaningful change, and not research subjects.
The newly established Community Engagement South Africa body signals growing institutional momentum across the sector. But momentum must be matched with measurable action. Delegates urged a bold recalibration of evaluation frameworks to incorporate community well-being indices, civic graduate capabilities, and indicators aligned with both the African Union’s Agenda 2063 and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. These are not replacements for existing systems – they are essential additions that reveal the fuller, more honest picture of what universities contribute to society.
For institutions like the Central University of Technology (CUT), Free State, these conversations land on deeply fertile ground. The CUT’s growing portfolio already demonstrates what reparative engagement looks like in grounded practice. Evidence spans Community-Based Service Learning, the Mothusi Primary School Project, Municipal Councillor Development Training programmes in partnership with Mangaung Metropolitan Municipality (MMM), digital literacy initiatives, and the Food and Nutrition Programme. The TEHIP Agriculture Hub at the Welkom Campus and the SMART Village initiative in Thaba ‘Nchu further illustrate the CUT’s capacity to foster innovative, community-centred partnerships that generate real, tangible benefits. Strategic alliances with the Siyaphumelela Initiative, the Saville Foundation, and the Kresge Foundation further reflect an institution that understands partnership as something far deeper than optics or public relations.
- Maritz is the director of community engagement for the Central University of Technology (CUT), Free State.
