Following the SAHUDA Quarterly Meeting and Recognition Programme, the engagement continued with the SAHUDA Annual Distinguished Lecture, supported by the NIHSS, under the theme “Traditions of Solidarity and the University of the Future.”
Delivering the lecture, Prof Crain Soudien challenged universities to critically examine the institutions they have inherited and to take a stand on the futures they wish to create. At the heart of his lecture was a call to rethink universities as part of a wider commons, one that extends beyond access to embrace participation, collective responsibility and shared benefit. He cautioned against romanticising an idealised past, arguing instead that universities have always been contested spaces shaped by questions of knowledge, power, inequality and belonging.
Moderated by Prof Siphokazi Magadla, the conversation created space to interrogate what solidarity might mean for universities of the future and how the Humanities and Social Sciences can contribute to building institutions that are more just, reflective and socially responsive.
Responding to the lecture, Dr Qawekazi Maqabuka reflected on the role of memory in shaping the future of universities, inviting consideration of what should be carried forward from the past, what must be transformed and what should consciously be left behind within a South African higher education landscape shaped by histories of exclusion, inequality, resistance and transformation.
