Comment on draft Visual Redress Policy
Stakeholders are invited to give input on Stellenbosch University's (SU) draft Visual Redress Policy before it is finalised to follow the internal approval process for institutional policies.
The internal campus consultation process with faculty boards has already started, and the public participation processes will run from 2 August until 2 September 2019.
The aim of the Visual Redress Policy is to give particular expression to the SU Vision 2040, with the focus on positioning SU as a university that expresses its visual embeddedness as part of an ongoing process of redress in relation to its local and global context.
The draft policy has the following primary outcomes:
- To bring together the visual redress and naming/renaming processes under one policy;
- To enhance and advance visual redress (including naming/renaming processes at SU);
- To stimulate critical dialogue (including teaching and learning and research) at the University;
- To ensure that visual redress is transparent; and
- To guide SU environments around processes of visual redress and naming/renaming.
Several years ago SU implemented the process of visual redress, which is guided by the SU Transformation Plan and implemented by the Division of Social Impact and Transformation. Much progress has been made to create student- and staff-friendly living and work spaces that conform to the needs of a diverse group of students, staff and other stakeholders.
“At the same time, the University has made a concerted effort to create spaces for dialogue about public symbols and historical figures. In addition to that, specific committees have been put in place to facilitate university-wide discourse about and approach to public symbols and the naming of buildings," explains Dr Leslie van Rooi, Senior Director: Social Impact and Transformation.
Through the visual redress project, several buildings have been named and renamed, art installations have been erected and a permanent statement composed reminding the University where it was and where it is heading.
Welcome messages in 15 languages have been carved onto benches in public areas on campus, including braille, Sign Language and San. A map of Die Vlakte was installed at the entrance of the Arts and Social Sciences building, which is built on the land from where families were evicted under the Group Areas Act in the 1960s.
Van Rooi says the policy will thus bring together and formalises two ongoing processes at SU – the naming and renaming of buildings, venues and other facilities and premises, as governed by the Committee for the Naming of Buildings, Venues and other Facilities and Premises, and the activities of the ad hoc Visual Redress Committee.
Moreover, the policy imbeds the naming processes at SU within the framework of visual redress, thus supplementing and enhancing the possibilities and impact of naming and renaming of buildings, venues and other facilities and premises on all SU campuses. It is foreseen that both committees will remain operative, but with a deliberate and direct form of interaction between them, which may include shared membership.
All written comments, formal submissions and enquiries should be sent to [email protected] before 16:00 on Monday 2 September 2019. All input will be considered, and further drafts will be tabled at the various statutory bodies between August and November. The final draft Visual Redress Policy will be tabled for approval at the last Council meeting on 2 December 2019.