The latest special edition of The Perspective Online was launched on the 9th of April 2021, on the theme of COVID-19 in Higher Education. This student journal is published bi-annually at Nelson Mandela University by the Chair for Critical Studies in Higher Education Transformation (CriSHET), the Office of the Dean of Students, and the Department of Student Governance and Development.
The Perspective Online journal came from a collective observation that student activism needs to also be driven by thoughtful and productive contributions to advance academic, pedagogical and knowledge renewal within the university. The journal has been positioned as a strategic resource for students to develop a culture of disciplined writing in order to bring to the fore a particular social consciousness amongst university students underpinned by robust engagement, radical contestation of ideas, and critical scholarship.
The online launch included contributions by three authors of articles published in the journal.
Anne Munene, a Research Assistant at CriSHET and a PhD candidate in Education at Nelson Mandela University, spoke on her contribution to a multi-authored paper on "(In)visibility of Race Online: Reflections on the Erasure of Race in International Networks during COVID-19".
Vuyolwethu Ngcofe, a Gender-Based Violence Case Coordinator at Nelson Mandela University, a Queer activist and Founder of a web series called ‘Remember My Voice - a Queer Memory Box’, spoke on her article entitled: "Being a Support Person in the Time of Gender-Based Violence and COVID-19".
Zvikomborero Hweju, a lecturer in the Department of Mechatronics Engineering at Chinhoyi University of Technology, Zimbabwe, and a PhD Mechatronics Engineering candidate at Nelson Mandela University, presented on "Embracing Sensor Technology in Mitigating COVID-19 Impact in Higher Education Institutions".
Copies of the journal can be downloaded here:
* The Morphology of the #MustFall Movement: The Debate Continues, Vol. 1 No. 1, March 2019, The Perspective Online
* Decolonisation of Law, Special Edition: Law, October 2019, The Perspective Online
* COVID-19 in Higher Education, Vol. 2, No 1-2, Special Edition, 2020, The Perspective Online