Over the past few months since our last newsletter, the world has become ever more accustomed to the “new normal" brought on by the global COVID-19 pandemic. Stellenbosch University (SU) has made great strides in adapting its efforts to ensure that its students – international students at SU, as well as SU students abroad – continue to receive a transformative experience. Student mobility pre-COVID-19 was a matter of taking an international flight and experiencing a university and culture beyond one's national borders. But with travel bans still in place in South Africa, we have had to find other means of ensuring that internationalisation and its associated experiences continue, despite students not being able to leave the country.

While we were looking forward to welcoming a new cohort of students from our partner universities this semester, we are not yet able to commence with face-to-face classes. However, we have given students the option of either postponing their exchange opportunity to the first semester of 2021, or joining classes online. Most students chose to defer their exchange, but some have started with online classes and might be able to join us on campus in the fourth quarter of 2020, if international travel is permitted by then. These online classes kicked off with an orientation and welcoming programme in cyberspace. We also hosted the first online edition of the African Doctoral Academy winter school from 6 to 24 July. The event, which attracted 90 participants, took the form of five workshops on systematic review, quantitative and qualitative research, preparing for a PhD, and statistics. This paves the way for future collaboration with our partner universities in building scholarship across the continent.

These are just some of the ways in which we aim to ensure that SU continues to provide students with a global experience despite current mobility constraints. The COVID-19 pandemic remains a learning opportunity for all universities, particularly in the field of internationalisation. At SU, we will continue to explore new ways of fostering our international partnerships and giving students from across the globe an experience that is indeed transformative.

Prof Hester C Klopper, Deputy Vice-Chancellor: Strategy and Internationalisation