UEL STRATEGIC INTENT
OUR VISION: Experiential Learning as Relational Praxis
Our vision is to be a pioneering global thought leader, shaping transformative experiential learning in complex and evolving contexts.
Experiential learning, as a relational praxis recognises that relationships shape learning. Knowledge emerges through engagement, dialogue, and shared responsibility across diverse contexts. Our vision positions experiential learning as a legitimate and powerful pathway to becoming.
OUR MISSION: Experiential Learning as Responsive Practice.
Our mission is to enable experiential learning as a catalyst for transformation by implementing practices that respond to contextual complexity, ethical responsibility, and societal change.
Experiential learning, when approached as responsive practice, establishes enabling conditions, systems, and processes. This ensure learning is intentional, informed by research, grounded in real-world scenarios, and responsive to societal change.
OUR VALUES: Experiential Learning as Reflective Presence
Experiential learning, as a shared value, shapes beliefs and behaviours, encouraging reflection and responsiveness to oneself, others, and context.
Values guide judgement and inform decision-making, shaping one's approach to learning. Reflective presence emphasises reflexivity and self-awareness, ensuring experiential learning is consistent, coherent, and accountable.
OUR PHILOSOPHY: Experiential Learning as Ubuntu
Experiential learning embodies Ubuntu through shared experience and reflection, rooted in relationality and responsiveness to the communities we serve.
Ubuntu, as the philosophical foundation of our work, views learning as inherently shared and relational, where growth is inseparable from connection to other and to the spaces and places we inhabit. Ubuntu shapes our understanding and recognition of experiential learning.
Core Pillars as Strategic Values: How Our Commitments Are Enacted
Our core pillars are expressed through seven strategic values. Together, they translate the Unit’s vision, mission, values, and philosophy into clear commitments that guide decision-making and practice across experiential learning.
While the pillars provide the conceptual structure of our framework, the strategic values show how this structure is enacted in practice. Each value articulates a shared principle and a corresponding set of actions that shape how experiential learning is designed, supported, evaluated, recognised, and continuously strengthened across the institution and its partnerships.
Taken together, the seven strategic values function as an integrated whole. They do not operate independently or hierarchically, but collectively ensure that experiential learning remains coherent, credible, and responsive across diverse contexts, linking purpose to practice and intention to impact.
KAIZEN: CONTINOUS IMPROVEMENT
Principle: Transdisciplinary collaboration, curiosity, and creative problem-solving.
Action: Design adaptable frameworks, learning models, and evaluation tools that continuously improve experiential learning.
Why: Human-centered innovation ensures experiential learning is responsive to people and context, supporting creativity through reflection and cross-disciplinary collaboration.
KAIZEN: CONTINOUS IMPROVEMENT
Principle: Partnerships aligned with SU Vision 2040
Action: Build and strengthen strategic collaborations with universities, faculty, industries, and global partners to cultivate a transformative experiential learning ecosystem.
Why: Experiential learning is enhanced through partnerships that are locally grounded and globally connected, especially within African and other global South contexts.
KAIZEN: CONTINOUS IMPROVEMENT
Principle: Technological fluency and resilience to navigate uncertainty.
Action: Equip individuals with the ability to think critically about the future implications of technology and contribute sustainably to their communities and the world.
Why: Experiential learning is critical for preparing students to engage reflectively with uncertainty, develop adaptability and ethical awareness, and foster long-term responsibility.
KAIZEN: CONTINOUS IMPROVEMENT
Principle: Scholarly integrity in recognising diverse ways of knowing and being.
Action: Integrate experiential learning into academic recognition systems, ensuring alignment with institutional goals and global best practices.
Why: Academic integrity enhances the credibility and legitimacy of experiential learning, aligning it with institutional standards while acknowledging diverse ways of knowing and being.
KAIZEN: CONTINOUS IMPROVEMENT
Principle: Research-informed learning-innovation for humanity.
Action: Generate knowledge through data-driven research and benchmarking, disseminate experiential learning insights locally and globally to contribute to the betterment of humanity.
Why: This value ensures experiential learning is evidence-informed and continuously strengthened through evaluation, shared inquiry, co-creation and research.
KAIZEN: CONTINOUS IMPROVEMENT
Principle: Synthesis of knowledge, learning, and relevant application.
Action: Offer expert advising, training, and development opportunities to experiential learning partners strengthening transformative initiatives.
Why: This value reinforces the educational integrity of experiential learning, ensuring an authentic connection between knowledge and lived experience.
