Address to Staff and Guests of the Faculty at the Second Speak Out Seminar: (12 March 2014,
Potchefstroom Campus, NWU)
Orientation, Initiation and the Academy: dialogical Spaces, power and tradition at universities
Robert J. Balfour, Dean of Education Sciences, North-West University
Good evening everyone. It is a privilege to be able to welcome you to our second in the Speak Out
Seminar series in the Faculty. I want to take the opportunity to acknowledge the Directors of the Faculty,
and especially my colleague Professor Cornelia Roux, Director of Research, and also Acting Director for
the Unit for Human Rights Education in Diverse Contexts. Together with Dr Shan Simmonds and Mr
Jacques Rothman from Sociology in the Faculty of Arts and Letters, we are pleased to be able to
support this series with its focus on topical issues pertinent to society in South Africa.
The recent debates concerning selected practices associated with the Orientation and Introduction
programme of the NWU (Potchefstroom Campus) have been conducted largely in the media in the form
of newspaper articles (for example, that of Adriaan Basson, 2014) in Die Beeld, or commentary (for
example, Pierre de Vos) in the Daily Maverick, or television (for example, Vice Chancellor, Theuns Eloff
on Dagbreek), or over the radio (for example the late night OFM Programme on the evening of
23/02/14). The leadership of the NWU has responded to allegations in a variety of forums, and to a
variety of persons; not least of which in response to the Statement issued by the Ministry of Higher
Education and Training (Qonde, 2014). In all the representations made by the University, the point has
been made about the context in which the salute took place, and in all instances this context has been
used not to defend the practice (clearly offensive and without a doubt problematic and incommensurate
with the University’s values), but rather in mitigation of the event. Our purpose in the Speak Out
seminars is to engage with challenges (be it specificity of the occurrence - the marches in battalion form,
the salutes and so on), but, more importantly in so doing, to focus on the epistemological points of
departure as regards the place and purpose of orientation practices in higher education. While the
leadership of the institution engages and responds to the general public and opinion makers, it remains
the responsibility of academics, as public intellectuals, to engage with institutional and social issues.
I have a few brief remarks to make about this debate as I have followed it in these last few weeks. First,
the recent focus on NWU in this instance is not an isolated occurrence. As noted by (Qonde, 2014) the
DoHET Media Statement, the University and specifically the campus has been the subject of negative
attention for reasons to do with its perceived monoculturalism, its language policy, and more recently the
practices and programme associated with the introduction of the first year students to the institution. The
second point is that this attention as related especially in media releases, articles and comments, has
focused on the superficial characteristics of the Orientation Programme. The value and educational
purpose of the Programme has not been considered in relation to the Soudien Report, for example
(Soudien, 2008). As such the opportunity for academics to interrogate and consider the merit of the
arguments and claims has been overshadowed. In this context, the Potchefstroom Campus
Management’s invitation to academics to engage with the leadership (the Rectorate and Deans) is
welcomed and testifies to the robust nature of higher education and the academy (that grouping of
people whose prime responsibility is teaching and research at the University). A third comment: there is
a tendency even among academics to displace the debate within the institution, by locating the issue at
the doorstep of the Dean of Students, Hostel Parents, the House Committees on the grounds that the
hostel system operates at a remove from academics with tangential connection to the work of faculties.
A further displacement occurs in relation to a belief that the controversy is part of an ‘attack on
Afrikaners and Afrikaans’. Both characterizations are dangerous, polarizing, and unhelpful. Fourthly: the
prevalence of orientation practices across the higher education system, has paled into insignificance
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besides the sensationalism of reporting about the Nazi style salute. Thus the wider issue as regards the
socialization of young adults into society on the one hand, and into the academy, on the other hand, is
obscured – and yet this remains a challenge in all universities.
Finally, on the occasion of this Seminar, a question concerning the purpose of the discussion itself
needs to be asked. I believe nothing further can be said about the events of the last three weeks, and so
the Seminar must proceed on the assumption that what has already been noted by the Rector, and the
Vice Chancellor needs not to be repeated. Neither do we gain anything from counter-claims in the media
as regards Campus culture or the perspectives offered by the AfriForum (van den Heever, 2014) on the
‘attack on Afrikaans’. We know the practice of greeting the hostel, serenading praises to the Hostel
Primarius (Senior Student and Chairperson of the House Committee) and then saluting the hostel,
marching on the Campus in battalion format and so on, is context-bound. Such practices occur within a
context which allows for their occurrences (although these might not be officially condoned). In these
terms, the relationship between such practices and the academy, and its values, begs to be explored
because these events occur in the name of the University, in the context of teaching and learning
programmes, over the period of one year. The last question to be asked by academics and indeed,
student leadership, is what do these occurrences say about ‘us’ as academy, and ‘us’/ NWU’ as
institution? As microcosm of society? As intellectual figures of senior and junior rank, with a
responsibility to knowledge and the creation of an open and multi-culturally diverse society?
Beyond these questions are deeper questions about the academy itself: what do orientation practices
say about the relationship between authority and power at a university (knowledge and the exercise of
leadership by those who possess it)? The purpose of the university are several. to broaden an
understanding of society, to equip persons with knowledge which automatically privileges them in
society, then another educative function of the institution is to enable the students to deal with the power
that comes by virtue of an education, and the authority that results from employment to positions of
power and responsibility.
In the aftermath of the media and other hype, there is also a tendency to want ‘move on’, to downplay
the discomfort, unpleasantness, or associated shame of the event (the salute). This latest impulse is
also problematic since the need exists to consider the relationship between practices that occur within
the institution, and its values and the alignment of these. The Seminar Speaks Out not ‘against’ NWU
leaders, academics or students, but rather about the need to engage with these questions – to deepen a
discussion and provide an academic input. It is fitting that Education, given that it is the profession and
academic discipline concerned with the practice of, and reflection on, knowledge transfer, knowledge
generation and knowledge preservation, should engage with these questions tonight and hopefully in
years to come.
To be sure, orientation practices vary in severity and form: the practice of greeting the hostel as at NWU
(de Kock, 2010), or serenading the hostel at occurs at Rhodes (de Klerk, 2013), ‘praxe’ as described as
selected Portuguese institutions (Diaz, Sa, 2014), ‘hazing’ as described in the United States have strong
social dynamics which emphasise hierarchy and privilege. I wish to draw in a fairly simple way on
Bernstein’s ideas of classification and framing, for two reasons. The first is that that Bernstein (1971)
described a technology for understanding pedagogic practice which took the teacher’s discourse as its
starting point, and which allowed for a degree of sophistication in understanding a variety of discourses
associated with strong classification (of knowledge) and framing (control). The second reason, has
naturally to do with the fact that Bernstein as an educational sociolinguist was concerned with the impact
of discourses as a learning opportunity for both teacher and student. Language for Bernstein is thus the
primary vehicle whereby the emphasis on inclusion and community, or the emphasis on hierarchy and
power in which insider status and outsider status are clearly delineated through a series of observances,
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call these traditions of you will. Bernstein defined the two concepts framing and classification;
adaptations of which I use in this talk. Classification had to do with the degree to which the curriculum
allowed for strong or weak distinctions between disciplines, and the extent to where their separation or
integration was emphasized, and framing: which had to do with the degree of control exercised by the
teacher in terms of the discourse employed to ‘frame’ knowledge. Similarly then, initiation might be
considered strong framing, and orientation weak framing. Classification might be defined as strong in
terms of high degrees of control and regulation by authority structures within strongly defined cultural
environments (like hostels), or weak when designed to emphasise university and academic processes
rather than cultural identification (in terms of belonging, hierarchy, privilege).
Whether in the strong form, in which systems enable senior students coerce or compel new students to
undertake a series of activities designed to emphasise the ‘newness’ of arrivals in higher education (for
example, Gogo, 2010, on drinking practices at Rhodes University), or the weak form (Kloppers, 2006,
Burgette-Magon and Jackson, 2008; and Thomson, 2009) in which a university sponsored academic
programme takes precedence and replaces the hazing or fraternity system, the first issue which needs
to be acknowledged is that orientation is a significant part of university practices and traditions, going
back to the medieval foundations of universities. The second matter to acknowledge is that, despite the
long-standing nature of these traditions, student populations have diversified, in terms of access, since
initiation or hazing practices were first instituted.
Given that the number of students entering higher education has risen...multiple
challenges exist for universities interested in retaining positive outcomes for all students
(Harris & Palmer, 1995). This growth represents not only an increase in diversity
amongst student populations, but also a need for universities to respond
innovatively...(Lamar and Ingemells, 2010, 1)
Collini (2012, 12-13 suggests also that globalization has added to the pressures for universities to
embrace the universality not only of knowledge, but also of identity; posing in some instances profound
ontological challenges about the nature of the institution itself. Even without diasporas of populations,
the development of feminism and access to, and the success in higher education, of women and
minority groups has necessitated that initiation/ orientation practices, and their origins come time and
again, under the attention of university and higher education authorities. Nuwer describes the impetus to
these practices in their crudest form beginning with hazing, which can be defined as:
an activity that a high-status member orders other members to engage in or suggests
that they engage in that in some way humbles a newcomer who lacks the power to resist,
because he or she wants to gain admission into a group (Nuwer 2001, xxv).
Clearly the persistence of a range of both strong (initiation) and weak (orientation) practices testifies to
the extent to which university authorities recognize these practices as either linked to, or tangential to
the academic project associated with higher education. Whilst hazing, excessive drinking or ritualized
initiation practices (serenades and marches) might persist even in elite institutions such as Cambridge or
Princeton, the problematic of such practices poses a series of profound challenges to the University in a
new century, and particularly in societies such as South Africa where the social transformation project is
still nascent. It follows that ambivalences within higher education institutions as to the role of orientation
practices for which senior or other student leadership take responsibility, comes to the attention of the
popular media, and often university authorities themselves. This hierarchical relationship between
students is in itself problematic in the context of practices designed to privilege some and not others, on
the basis of relative seniority without qualification and thus authority within an intellectual institution.
The question should be asked afresh given the range of practices across universities in South Africa, is
whether these are necessary for the formation (social and cultural) and development (intellectual and
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academic) of a higher education graduate and young critical citizen in South Africa? The question is
complex since it is presupposed that higher education institutions will develop institutional identities not
unrelated to the diversity of groups of students attending the institution. If the variety of persons (and
thus values, beliefs and experiences) is considered to be one basis of the identity of the student body,
consider also that the variety of assumptions, experiences, and identities brought to the university by
academics who, by virtue of the disciplinary affinities, add a further dimension to the institution: the
development, generation and preservation of knowledge. In this context the role of the institution itself
acts as a further behavioral variable, since the values espoused by the institution are expected to
influence not only the types of behaviours and sensibilities to be affirmed, but also the strategic
directions in which research, teaching and administration are supported. Thus, one has to ask whether,
and to what extent does Afrikaans as language of a campus support monoculturalism, or provide the
basis for which a range of differences are not only allowed, but also encouraged (the shift from tolerance
to acceptance).
The Potchefstroom Campus is well-known as a Afrikaans language institution in which provision is also
made for the support of students not able to access the language. It is also distinctively an Afrikaans
cultural institution with a long history of association with this language community. This identity is neither
abnormal nor disencouraging in higher education, but the extent to which this identity affiliation promotes
or discourages differences is debatable. One could argue that all institutions aspire to particular
identities drawn from communities and supportive of communities from which students are recruited, but
to what extent to secular, public institutions promote a degree of exclusivity which then provides fertile
growth for a particular youth and academic identity. Theorists supportive of cultural, race and language
diversity in education suggest that monoculture constrains diversity. For example, Susan Goff suggests
that culturally heterogeneous institutions lead to…:
increasing fragmentation within the tight boundaries of a knowledge system (Bourdieu,
1977), whereas heteroculture particularly in the context of cultures of knowing, radically
expands the lone pine, western tree of knowledge into a rich and varied forest. Not only
does this release the tightness of the boundary of the knowledge system, a tightness that
often has dire consequences for the people within it, it also enables a knowledge system
to become self-aware, inter-breed, even die without losing the whole human battle, and
become part of a resilient ecosystem for humanity and all life - which one, overworked
and internally fragmenting knowledge tree can never do…
Despite the commitment, by its very nature to a diversity of belief, experience and knowledge, any
university has a responsibility to the State to develop citizens capable of contributing to the society in the
arts, sciences, health, commerce, law such that the sustainability of the State can be enhanced.
Universities as institutions of the State, are thus expected to exert forms of social as well as intellectual
leadership: condoning some practices, supporting others, initiating new practices and compelling the
end of others. Thus, the mandate to engage in higher education allows for the university to make explicit
a set of values and associated practices, to give expression unique to its context, purpose and
aspirations. These brief remarks provide the framing for the discussion this evening, and it is my hopes
that the insights offered by panel members will shed light on the questions concerning the extent to
which institutional values align with deep-seated academic practices in which power, its accumulation
and ‘handling’ is mediate through knowledge as well as behavior. With the above in mind we welcome
this evening an array of colleagues and student leadership. The point of providing our audience with a
range of experience and knowledge is precisely to tease open the questions addressed in previous
paragraphs and so I would like to welcome the panel members especially:
Prof JP Rossouw: Scholar in Education Law and residence master on campus;
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Prof Cornelia Roux: Scholar in Diversity in Education and previously a liaison officer of a
private residence and for 17 years member of a tertiary disciplinary committee
another tertiary institution;
Dr Johan Botha: Research scholar in aggression and violence; power and control in
(post)conflict societies.
Mr Jaco Lubbe: BA-Hons student, Faculty of Arts and previous a receiver of and
participant in traditional and initiation practices;
Ms Jané-Louise Venter: BEd-student and current house committee member of a campus
residence;
Ms Lineke Hattingh: BEd Hons-student and previous house committee member of a
campus residence;
First year students that took part in initiation practices at our campus: Names to be
announced.
At the closing of the panel Prof Anne Verhoef from the Faculty of Arts to respond to, and also
reflect on, experiences and perceptions shared by the panel, and then facilitate the discussion. I
thank you.
References
Basson. A. 2014. Die waarheid is jou vyand. Rubriek. Beeld. Sondag 16 Februarie 2014
Bernstein, B. 1971. On the classification and framing of educational knowledge. In MFD Young (ed). Knowledge and
Control: New directions for the sociology of education. London, Collier MacMillan, 47-69.
Bourdieu, Pierre. 1977. Outline of a Theory of Practice. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press
Burgette, J.E. and S. Magun-Jackson. 2008. Freshman Orientation, Persistence, and Achievement: A Longitudenal Analysis
in Journal of College Student Retention, 10(3), 235-263.
Collini, S. 2012. What are universities for? London, Penguin.
de Klerk, V, 2013. Initiation, Hazing or Orientation? A case study at a South African University. International Research in
Education. 1(1), 86-100.
de Kock. Johannes Hendrikus, 2010. A Mixed Method Evaluation of the Subjective Well-Being of First Year Tertiary
Students During Orientation. Unpubl. MA Dissertation. North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus.
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Hollins, T.N. 2009. Examining the Impact of a Comprehensive Approach to Student Orientation. The Journal of the Virginia
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Discrimination in Public Higher Education Institutions. 30 November 2008.
van den Heever, J. 2014. Nzimande intervention at Puk an onslaught on Afrikaans, aided by Beeld editor – AfriForum Youth
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