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NCA South Africa Study Tour Report


Prepared August 17, 1999 for the NCA Administrative Committee

According to participants, the study tour more than accomplished its goals: to support the development of the communication discipline in South Africa and to develop an exchange of information between communication scholar teachers there and in the United States. The tour members were enthusiastically welcomed and served as excellent ambassadors for NCA in South Africa. The tour included visits to sites of historical and cultural significance in Johannesburg, Durban, and Cape Town, and meetings with communication faculty and administrators from seven higher education institutions in those cities. Each meeting was accompanied by a luncheon or reception to welcome the NCA representatives; and each visit resulted in an array of mutually beneficial relationships between the tour participants and the hosting communication colleagues. The following report outlines: the immediate actions of the National Office to follow up on the tour; academic panels and meetings to be scheduled; a description of the activities that took place in each city; and, a list of the intended projects to be pursued by each tour member.

Immediate Actions

As a result of meeting with colleagues in South Africa, each tour member has developed several project ideas to pursue. Those projects are listed below for each tour member. An email discussion list, southafrica@natcom.org has been established to facilitate discussion of the various projects. Letters of appreciation have been sent to the colleagues in South Africa who hosted meetings and social events. Follow-up publicity efforts include an article in Spectra, a CRTNET message, and an article in Juluka, a newsletter distributed to people in the United States who are interested in South Africa.

Academic Panels and Meetings

The tour members are planning the following academic panels and meetings and request scheduling, as indicated by members of the Administrative Committee:

 

  1. A report-out breakfast meeting at the 1999 NCA convention was attended by the 12 tour members and the Administrative Committee. 
  2. A panel and/or pre-conference was scheduled at the 2000 NCA convention. 
  3. Panels were scheduled at the regional conventions in 2000 . 
  4. A panel was scheduled at the American Association for Higher Education, April, 2000 National Meeting on Diversity. 

Summary of Activities by City

 
Johannesburg and Pretoria

In Johannesburg, tour members visited MuseumAfrica and Soweto, a predominantly black disadvantaged area that was   the site of a children’s uprising against Apartheid’s educational system. The NCA tour participants visited the University of Pretoria where they were welcomed by the chair, Ronel Rensburg, and faculty members of the Department of Marketing and Communication. They toured the university and its private art collection and participated in a traditional South African tea reception and a two-hour discussion meeting.

The Pretoria visit also included a luncheon meeting at the local Technikon hosted by the communication department. A technikon is a school that is somewhat like a community college in that it is skills oriented and focuses on teaching students what they need to know to be marketable in the work place. The tour proceeded from the technikon to the largest distance education program in the world based at the University of South Africa (UNISA). Pieter Fourie, chair of the communication program provided an overview of UNISA and led a tour of the campus and its distance education facilities.

 
Durban

In the coastal city of Durban, Keyan Tomaselli and Ruth Teer-Tomaselli of the Cultural and Media Studies Center at the University of Natal hosted a meeting for the tour members. After a tour of the campus and a luncheon, a meeting took place that included representatives of the University of Natal, University of Durban-Westville, Technikon Natal, and ML Sultan Technikon. The NCA members attended a small party in their honor at the home of the Professors Tomaselli.

 
Cape Town

In Cape Town, the tour members visited Robben Island where Nelson Mandela spent 27 years in captivity. They participated in a private tour of the African National Congress’ Parliament, which was in session at the time. They also visited public schools in the disadvantaged shantytown area of Cape Town.

At the University of Cape Town, Phillippe-Joseph Salazar, and Yehoshua Gitay, co-directors of the Centre for Rhetoric Studies, hosted a meeting for the tour members, Senior Vice-Chancellor Gevers opened the meeting and welcomed the U.S. colleagues.   Included in the meeting were Melissa Steyn, head of the Professional Communication unit on the campus and John Higgins, who is responsible for film studies. The meeting concluded with a late afternoon cocktail reception at the home of Melissa Steyn.

 Intended Projects of Tour Members

Deborah Atwater, Pennsylvania State University:

  1. Work with several universities to establish exchange programs for faculty and students i.e. the Universities of Cape Town, Pretoria, and Natal in communication and African and African American Studies (AAAS).
  2. Work on ways the Department of AAAS can foster a relationship to provide resources (supplies) for certain primary schools in Soweto and Cape Town.
  3. Begin to explore the possibilities of collaborative research with colleagues at Pretoria, Cape Town, and Natal.
  4. Explore possible connections with UNISA regarding distance education.
  5. Present at ECA,NCA, AAHE, and NCOR (National Association on Race and Ethnicity in Higher Education) on reflections on the South Africa Study Tour.

Carolyn Calloway-Thomas, Indiana University:

  1. Collaborate with Chris Hurst of the University of Natal, Durban on the following:
  1. Write a pedagogical article examining the role of culture, multiculturalism, and dominance in the teaching of a performance course such as public speaking and acting (drawing parallels between the United States and South Africa).
  2. Co-author a book on South African forms of orality.
  3. Plan a conference on the relationship between orality and literacy that will draw scholars from South Africa and North America.
  1. Write article for Juluka newsletter for those interested in South Africa in the D.C. area.

Melbourne Cummings, Howard University:

  1. Work out a collaborative project with Pretoria Technikon and University of Pretoria on faculty and possibly student exchange.
  2. Enhance Howard’s present course as well as develop a new course in intercultural communication (and one on culture in South Africa as it relates to facilitating communication and education).
  3. Work on resource enhancement for primary school(s) in Langa in Cape Town.
  4. Check on bringing representatives from the primary school in Soweto to the U.S. for several cultural presentations.
  5. Work on collaborative effort to bring former prisoner and tour guide to the U.S. for several seminar presentations.
  6. With Judy Latta, co-write article(s) on women in the development of the "new" South Africa; work on an ethnographic article on our various impressions and experiences with how holdover attitudes are given expression.
  7. Continue to explore other collaborations in graduate and undergraduate education, and technical training

Johnetta Davis, University of Maryland:

  1. Expand opportunities for faculty and student exchange with University of Maryland and with selected universities, particularly in areas of communication (public discourse, public relations and journalism).
  2. Explore with Tom Socha the possibility of conducting research on family communication in various ethnic groups in South Africa and compare these practices with what is observed in the U.S.
  3. Present the concept of adopting a township school with civic and service groups in the U.S.; with minimal contributions, much would be accomplished in improving the resources that are available in such schools. Explore getting additional support to move from school to school, starting with the school visited in Langa in Cape Town.
  4. Immediately organize a drive to contribute Black dolls to the pre-school at Saint Anthony's in Cape Town. Consider this as a personal project for those on this tour.
  5. While we did not see many programs in speech pathology (since they were mainly in hospital settings), it would be helpful to collaborate with the ASHA study group who visited South Africa in 1998 to work out some joint projects.

Errol Hibbert, Nassau Community College:

  1. Establish exchange programs, study abroad, and internships with Pretoria Technikon as well as the two technikons in Durban.

Sandra Herndon, Ithaca College:

  1. Work with faculty of University of Durban-Westville on curriculum revisions of their communication program.
  2. Seek to collaborate with others to bring Peter Fourie of UNISA to Ithaca College to explore distance education ( and converse with Cornell University Office of Distance Learning as well).
  3. Seek to collaborate with others in bringing former prisoner of Robben Island to U.S. as a speaker.
  4. Enhance existing courses in graduate and undergraduate program and share resources with intercultural colleagues for similar proposals.
  5. Develop on-campus colloquia to share learning.
  6. Work with Intercultural International Office to explore possible student and/or faculty exchange program.
  7. Coordinate ECA panel, participate in NCA national convention panel, and possibly AAHE panel.

Judith Latta, Howard University:

  1. Explore funding option for a faculty exchange with the Film Studies/Media Studies program at the University of Cape Town.
  2. Continue discussions with Eddie Mbalo (Director of Current Affairs, e-TV and founder of the first Black-run production company in South Africa). The objective will be to develop a plan for a co-production effort and an exchange of personnel for training.
  3. Collaborate with the technikons on the development of a student and faculty exchange program.
  4. Introduce primary schools in Soweto and Langa to groups in the Washington metropolitan area with the intention of developing a systematic plan for resource support of those schools.

Joan Payne, Howard University:

  1. Establish liaisons with faculties in Communication Disorders with the South Africa universities visited.
  2. Work to establish a dialogue between my home departments and those faculties for the purpose of developing ways to exchange faculty, students, and research.
  3. Actively work to help facilitate those exchanges.
  4. Participate in research and the evaluation of these possible exchanges and use the research to develop models for other like-minded universities and departments.
  5. Develop research protocol between Howard University and South African universities to advance critical knowledge.

Dorothy Pennington, University of Kansas:

  1. Engage in collaborative research with Melissa Steyn of the University of Cape Town focused on the variable of power in intercultural communication, making cross-cultural comparisons between South Africa and the United States.

Thomas Socha, Old Dominion University:

  1. Explore the possibility of inviting Pieter Fourie, the chair of the communication department of the University of South Africa (an expert on distance education), to visit Old Dominion University.
  2. Explore the joint possibility of bringing a former prisoner of Robben Island (and cellmate of Nelson Mandela) to the United States.
  3. Develop an articulation agreement between University of Natal, Durban and Old Dominion University for student exchange in communication.
  4. Work with an elementary school in Virginia to assist schools in Cape Town and Soweto.
  5. Write an article for Southern States Communication Association's Connections on communication studies in South Africa.

Virginia Thigpen, Volunteer State Community College:

  1. Work with Tom Socha to write article on experiences for SSCA's quarterly newsletter Connections.
  2. Work with Marc Caldwell at Technikon in Durban on curriculum matters in journalism and speech communication.
  3. Conduct on-campus colloquia to enhance our students' learning about another part of the world.
  4. Explore possibility of bringing Peter Fourier or information about UNISA to our campus
  5. Collaborate with UNISA to develop more approaches to distance learning (i.e. WEB-based courses, video courses, etc.)
 

 
 
This portion of www.natcom.org is managed by Donna Porter and updated by Jennifer Peltak.  If you have suggestions or additions, please contact them directly. NCA: 1765 N Street, NW,  Washington, D.C. 20036;  202-464-4622;  202-464-4600 (fax)