On September 13th, 2023, Professor Moja presented a keynote titled “Emerging operating modes in African universities: Innovations in teaching, research and community engagement”, a professor of higher education at New York University, an extraordinary professor at the University of the Western Cape, and a visiting research fellow at the University of Pretoria. This was bookended by a series of introductory talks and a round-table discussion on issues of governance.
This conference aims to unpack the defining and emerging features of the current university in Africa as we begin the second quarter of the millennium. Furthermore, the salient sociological understanding of the university as a unified global cultural reference system is to be interrogated and recalibrated. What are the peculiarities of African universities and how should they respond to the push for global standardisation? From a political standpoint, the conference aim to enrich the debate and strengthen the development of the higher education systems in which African universities are located.