South African AIR and Callibrating Loops

It’s been more than an exciting week here in South Africa.  The past three days found me at the South African Association for Institutional Research meeting in Port Elisabeth where I did the opening keynote.   It’s a “prezi,” a nonlinear alternative to PowerPoint that you can view on the web:  http://prezi.com/lr0nmgaf2zgs/  The theme of my presentation was “Calibrating Loops:  Connecting Practice to Evidence,” intended as the kickoff for the conference.

What I found was 105 very bright people poised to address the mounting and critical need to educate more students onward to degrees and sustainable lives.  The presentations were crisp and better, in many ways, that similar presentations I had heard around the World.  Jan Botha was elected Chair of the Association for a second year running and they’re in good shape with his elegant leadership style.

What seemed to catch the attention of the participants in my address was the need for institutional researchers to connect across the institution and with themes that aren’t really addressed well in the States, including working with instructional researchers to advance the cause of student success.  George Subotzsky delivered an elegant presentation that plumbed the depth of student fit with institutions, especially in the area of distance education.  His institution, the University of South Africa, serves 280,000 students!  George left the group with the image of understanding interactions with institutions as the “student walk.”  SAAIR can be very proud of its annual meeting and the quality of papers there which were on par with any other professional meeting I’ve attended over the past three decades.

Tomorrow we’re off to the Kruger for some encounters with the Big 5 (lion, leopard, elephant, buffalo and rhino).  We saw a rhino running after a pickup yesterday, defending his offspring.  An awesome sight.  He was closing his own loop. We hope not to repeat that experience in the Kruger and imagine we won’t especially if we’re not in a white pick-up, right?

We also saw an amazing native dance troupe last night.  They would easily put any aerobics instructor to complete shame.  Too bad I didn’t have our video along, but there is one keeper in the the mounting pile of pictures from this trip.  As always images of these adventures can be located at my Flickr site.  The Port Elisabeth set is what you’ll want.

Rick Voorhees (happily creating time with new colleagues in South Africa)