The 2023 Pride Week opening brought together a diverse audience eager to delve into the intersection of LGBTQIA+ rights and religious interpretation

The Office of Equity and Institutional Culture is excited to announce the return of the 'My Body, My Choice' campaign to Rhodes University. The phrase, 'My Body My Choice,' originates in the women-led movement for reproductive rights in the United States but has been widely used by different activist collectives pursuing their rights to bodily integrity and self-determination. Rhodes University can boast a history of active feminist work on campus, including a decade's worth of photographic campaigns under the banner of 'My Body, My Choice' focused on the reclamation of embodiment.

On 28 September 2022, the Division of Student Affairs (DSA), the Disability Committee and the Equity and Institutional Culture Office at Rhodes University hosted a seminar on invisible disabilities. The seminar gave a platform to engage different stakeholders on matters affecting students and staff living with disabilities, with a particular emphasis on ‘invisible disabilities’.

Rhodes University recently hosted dialogues for male students to discuss issues surrounding gender-based violence (GBV). These dialogues facilitated a space where male students could interrogate gender inequalities and think about how to create more gender equitable societies.

In its closing event for the year, Rhodes University’s Office of Equity and Institutional Culture, together with Department of Political and International Relations, held ‘The Trial of Caster Semenya’ seminar at Eden Grove.

Dr 'Mabokang Monnapula-Mapesela, DVC: Academic and Student Affairs at Rhodes University, recently attended an Association of Commonwealth Universities (ACU) roundtable which included, among others, HRH The Duchess of Sussex.

The evening of 5 September 2019 welcomed an informative and interactive lecture entitled “Renegotiating perceptions of the impaired body’ by Lebo Kibane, Enable Society’s Vice-Chairperson.

As part of Rhodes University’s Equity and Institutional Culture annual Disability Week, ability activist Chaeli Mycroft shared her inspiring story with the University.

By hosting a series of open discussions and conversational panels, the aim of this year’s Gender Week has been to facilitate the process of healing and to educate the University community about gender, societal and institutional culture.

The second day of Gender Week ended in an insightful conversation titled 'Debunking Deviance', facilitated by Dr Lindsay Kelland, Senior Lecturer at the Allan Gray Centre for Learning Ethics (AGCLE).

Rhodes University staff, students and members of the Makhanda Community gathered under a tent at the Drostdy Lawns on 21 March to discuss water as a human right. Hosted by the Equity and Institutional Culture Office, this event was a panel discussion that included Makana Municipality Executive Mayor Mzukisi Mpahlwa.

Rhodes University is one of the institutions that have been at the centre of the transformation debate. This was evident in 2017 when after 115 years of existence, the students demanded the renaming of the university.

“He who controls the word, controls the world”. This was the message from author and television presenter, Lebo Mashile at the Power of the Word Debating Competition Launch on 21 March at Rhodes University. This is the second annual debate competition which involves reses at Rhodes University competing against each other using transformation topics.

Rhodes University students and staff gathered at the Eden Grove Blue Lecture venue on 20 March 2019 for a panel discussion that looked at human rights in South Africa and what they mean to them.

A panel discussion on the right to vote in South Africa was held on 26 March 2019 in the Eden Grove Blue Lecture Theatre. This discussion focused on the right to free, fair and regular elections and the upcoming South African general elections taking place on 8 May 2019.

The Equity and Institutional Culture Office is embarking on 22 staff workshops at Rhodes University to highlight and educate on issues of gender – based violence, sexual assault and sexual harassment.

-In the last three years, university students in South Africa have led countrywide protests demanding transformation, an end to the outsourcing of contract workers and free quality education.

Sexual violence has become a gruesome topic in the country. On 7 August 2018, as part of the Silent Protest Programme, Rhodes university hosted a “Rape and the Law” panel discussion, where Dr Benita Moolman, Mx Lisa Vetten, Dr Thulane Gxubane and Advocate Nicola Turner spoke about how the criminal justice system responds to rape.

During this year’s Silent Protest, BACK.TALK Womxn’s Collective held a two-day workshop at Rhodes University, which included poster making, an exhibition, and a creative dialogue with India-based artist Aqui Thami.

No student who qualifies for entry into South Africa's Technical, Vocational Education and Training (TVET) should have to pay a cent of their study costs, according to a proposal released on Monday.

After the success of its 2016 Teaching and Learning Conference, the University of Zululand one again held this significant conference with a focus on “Africanisation of Teaching and Learning: Creativity, Innovation, Invention, Information and Communication Technologies and student participation”.

Over R770bn is needed to provide higher education infrastructure by 2030, says the Heher Commission.

Around 300 students met at the Great Hall Piazza at Wits University on Thursday to discuss the yet to be officially released Heher Fees Commission report and to decide on a course of action that could impact on the examination period and the fate of 37,000 students who are about to start writing their exams on 3 November.

The Minister of Higher Education and Training, Professor Hlengiwe Mkhize, has welcomed the latest Statistics South Africa figures which show that university graduation numbers are rising and that ever more students studying at the country’s 26 public higher education institutions are now from previously disadvantaged backgroungds.

A leaked report says South Africa cannot afford to meet students' demand for higher education to be free for all.

The proportion of black students progressing at universities was higher in the 1980s than it was in 2017, says statistician-general Pali Lehohla.

Higher Education Minister Hlengiwe Mkhize has appealed for restraint from all sides to allow for exams to proceed as tensions rise at university campuses over free tuition.

Delaying the release of the report of the Commission of Inquiry into Higher Education and Training by the Presidency is holding back the University of Cape Town’s budgetary plans for 2018, says UCT vice-chancellor Max Price.

Stellenbosch University's chief operating officer has rejected the perception that students who can't afford to study there are excluded from the institution.

In August Zuma received the final report of the commission established to look into the feasibility of scrapping university tuition fees.

It was money that led the founders of Rhodes University to name the institution after Cecil John Rhodes – and money that will hinder changing the name.

Ministerial Task Team (MTT) to look into why there are so few black professors at South African universities.

Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University will be known as Nelson Mandela University from July 20.

In the face of debilitating funding cuts and new waves of student activism, the role of universities in addressing the critical challenges facing the world, such as increasing socioeconomic inequality, is being scrutinised.

Hleze Kunju has been hailed for breaking barriers in academia after becoming the first person at Rhodes University in the Eastern Cape to write a PhD in his mother tongue.

South Africa is facing a leadership vacuum, and the future needs graduates to contribute meaningfully, writes Sizwe Mabizela.

Infrastructure backlogs have led to accommodation shortages and student protests

AfriForum and Solidarity’s legal team today submitted an application with the Constitutional Court for leave to appeal against the Supreme Court of Appeal’s ruling over the language policy of the University of the Free State (UFS).

The National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) has rejected the appeals of more than 2,000 students against their unsuccessful applications for study funding in the 2017 academic year.

The Department of Higher Education and Training has released about 233,000 National Certificate (Vocational) [NC (V)] certificates out of the outstanding 236,000 at technical and vocational education and training (TVET) colleges. The backlog dates back to 2007.

Most African countries have been unable to reverse the colonial pattern of education whereby colonial powers left their subject populations with limited technical, scientific and economic education.

Wits University’s Senate has expressed “deep concern” about the state of the country and the effect of corruption on education funding.

...generational estrangement deeper than we have acknowledged” had emerged between the Fees Must Fall generation - those who've led protests against high university tuition fees and higher education structures they say are unjust - and their “scorn for almost everyone over the age of 40”.

In the two years since student protests kicked off at South Africa’s universities, people have become increasingly interested in what decolonization means.