Forging University Social Responsibility Through Community Engagement at Higher Education

This chapter interrogates the notion of community engagement or service learning. The chapter argues that universities pay lip service to community engagement to the detriment of teaching and research functionaries. Most prestige universities operate on the belief that it is only research that matters; hence, research is prioritized. Universities and their staff have adopted an ‘ivory tower' attitude. This modus operandi negates the reality that reliable knowledge could be produced through responsible community engagement and can become the source of empirical data that can be used for teaching and shared through publications. For universities to impact transformational change within and in their surroundings, community engagement should be elevated to equal teaching and learning.

Universities in Developmental Transition

This chapter interrogates the benefits that would accrue to and challenges faced by universities in their developmental transition from being an ivory tower to engaged and people-centered institutions. The chapter argues that universities should consider themselves as vehicles of socio-economic change by participating in the process of forming values and setting reachable goals for the benefit of larger society. University of Botswana (UB) adopted ‘Strategy for Excellence: University of Botswana Strategic Plan to 2016 and Beyond' while the University of KwaZulu-Natal has adopted Strategic Plan 2017-2021 with eight goals. Through these plans, the universities seek to have a more direct impact within communities and society. Community engagement or service learning is adopted as one of the vehicles to fast-track the transition process in this chapter. This chapter is qualitative and has made use of UB and UKZN as the case studies to deliberate the university transition from ivory towers into engaged, responsible, and people-centered institutions.

The changing face of contemporary translation studies through polydisciplinary lenses: Possibilities and caveats

This paper offers a meta-reflection of contemporary translation studies (TS) through tracing its polydisciplinary tensions which are approached as both formative forces as well as hindrances. Taking a form of an argumentative essay employing the methods of a reflexive introspection, synthesis and evaluation, the principal aim is to address the potentials and controversies in present-day TS which are connected to its polydisciplinarity. This is a result from the aftermath of Snell-Hornbys integrated approach (1988/1995), TSs cultural and ideological turns as well as cognitive, sociological, anthropological, technological and economic twists. Four major strands of the consequences of the polydisciplinarity in TS are addressed: (a) the clash between the focus on the epistemological core of TS as an antidote to the expanding boundaries of the meta-discipline and embrace of reciprocal interdisciplinarity; (b) the tension between academia as Ivory Tower and practice-minded language industry; (c) the diffusion of the outer boundaries of TS and erasure of its inner boundaries; (d) a multitude of different conceptualizations of TS foregrounding either the abstract or practical. Following TSs inward orientations, two outward turns are suggested, i.e. promoting its relevance to other disciplines and reaching out to translation practice, in tune with Zwischenbergers approach (2019). A continuation of the outward turns may be seen in Gentzlers post-translation studies focusing on the study of pre-translation culture and after-effects of translation in the target culture. Although the paper does not tend to conceptual extremes, it suggests that authentic transdisciplinary TS should be mindful of a constructive and mutually enriching dialogue with donor disciplines and interlacement between theory and practice, with a focus on real-world issues, becomes imperative in order to make TS viable.

In the Shadow of the Ivory Tower: How Universities are Plundering our Cities: by Davarian L. Baldwin

In today’s politically charged, anti-education climate, In the Shadow of the Ivory Tower should be required reading for every urban community organizer and higher education stakeholder. Davarian L. Baldwin blends captivating interview excerpts and thoroughly researched data to tell the stories of the winners and losers in and around well-known universities in urban areas from coast to coast. Cultural differences, policing problems, economic disparities, real estate transactions, taxes, and subsidies are all addressed. In the Shadow of the Ivory Tower is a powerful conversation starter about who really benefits from the physical presence of American universities, and how universities might change their tactics to expand those benefits to communities at large.

Academic Emotions

The University is an institution that disciplines the academic self. As such it produces both a particular emotional culture and, at times, the emotional suffering of those who find such disciplinary practices discomforting. Drawing on a rich array of writing about the modern academy by contemporary academics, this Element explores the emotional dynamics of the academy as a disciplining institution, the production of the academic self, and the role of emotion in negotiating power in the ivory tower. Using methodologies from the History of Emotion, it seeks to further our understanding of the relationship between the institution, emotion and the self.