Some said ‘impossible’, but stadium turned into varsity
“IT always seems impossible until it’s done”.
These words by Nelson Mandela inspired staff and students at NMMU when faced with the difficult challenge of completing last year’s academic year with limited access to our campuses.
Our academic completion plan involved a combination of digital learning and limited face-toface teaching followed by final assessments and examinations.
While exploring off-campus venue options, the Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium popped up as an option in discussions with the mayor and the metro.
Could we complete our classes, some of our experiential and digital learning, and examinations in a soccer stadium?
Many responded with “impossible”.
Yet, given the university’s commitment to ensure that as many students as possible completed their academic year and went on to graduate, the impossible had to be achieved.
It took just four days to create a mini-university in the sta- dium. With much “thinking without a box”, hard work and little sleep, teaching and learning spaces were crafted into being in the most unlikely ways and places.
Pride of place went to a 120seater computer lab created from scratch for students from disciplines such as architecture, architectural technology, IT, maths and journalism to complete their practical work, as well as for students who needed to access digital learning materials.
Security in accessing the stadium was balanced by a calm, peaceful, relaxed atmosphere within.
Healthcare and counselling facilities were available, along with a recharge zone where students and staff could “chill”.
University staff and senior students volunteered as marshals to help students to find their way around the unfamiliar surroundings.
This enabled teaching, student learning and motivation to be reignited – which was very necessary after five weeks of protest action.
Once students adjusted to their new-found surroundings, they began to sense that they were making history as today few can claim to have written their examinations in a soccer stadium.
Many selfies were taken, capturing this historic moment in students’ lives.
Over a period of 12 days, 476 hours were spent concluding classes and tests in eight venues and three alcoves at the stadium.
More than 220 module codes, across 65 disciplines were covered.
More than 10 000 students accessed the stadium for teaching, learning and assessment purposes, along with 153 lecturers.
Developing a timetable to make all this possible took much ingenuity too.
Interesting spaces were repurposed for examinations.
For example, some long, wide corridors on the sides of the stadium were able to seat between 200 and 350 students.
Students could choose to write in November or January.
This meant that developing exam schedules and guessing how many students might arrive and thus anticipating what size venue was needed for each paper. It seemed impossible. However, our examinations section rose to the occasion.
Consequently, more than 32 000 student entries were recorded to write about 1 000 papers in 24 days with two exam sessions daily. Did we achieve our goal? Success rates in our second semester modules are within 1% of previous years and above the Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET) benchmark of 80%.
This suggests that despite the impossibility of running a university in a soccer stadium, academic standards were maintained.
Given these success rates, a similar number of returning students relative to last year have enrolled to continue their studies this year.
Most impressive, however, is that 6 786 graduates will be capped this month – the highest number of graduates for NMMU’s autumn graduation.
How did the impossible happen?
It required courageous leadership to embark on this journey into the unknown and inspire everyone to believe that the impossible was possible.
Commitment was needed over a sustained period of three months, along with perseverance in navigating the varied challenges that regular- ly arose in completing the journey. It meant a personal sacrifice of time and energy.
Some, for example, gave up the comfort of an office to work in a scullery that doubled as a communal tearoom and the nerve centre of the university’s operations at the stadium.
Spaces that could be purposed for teaching and exams required creative thinking as did designing a student access system that involved developing software to scan students.
The glue that made it possible to remain courageous, committed and creative was that we shared a common goal of completing the academic year. It was a collaborative effort of working across silos and teaming up with stadium management and SAPS to ensure that things ran smoothly.
Having embarked on a journey to do the seemingly impossible to complete an academic year in a soccer stadium, we can now say with pride, “it has been done”. Graduation will provide a moment for the university, its graduates, stadium management and the metro to celebrate this achievement.
We hope that our impossible journey and the lessons learnt will inspire others when facing challenges that seem to be impossible.