Siyaphumelela South African delegates attend DREAM2023

Ashton Maherry

After two years of online conferences, there was much excitement among delegates about being able to participate, face-to-face, in this year’s Achieving the Dream (ATD’s) signature event, the DREAM 2023 conference. Over 2 300 educational practitioners from over 300 colleges came together to explore college transformation as a catalyst for equity and economic vitality and to showcase evidence-based strategies that drive access, momentum, mobility, and community impact. DREAM 2023 marks the ninth year that participants from South Africa have attended. In more recent years, colleagues from, New Zealand have also participated in DREAM, thus strengthening representation from the global South.

All 17 universities that are part of the Saide Siyaphumelela, student success initiative along with four Saide Siyaphumelela team members, one Council for Higher Education (CHE) representative and three Siyaphumelela Coaches made up the South African delegation, with 34 of the South African delegates receiving sponsorship to attend the conference from The Kresge Foundation. A pre-conference welcome reception was hosted by The Kresge Foundation, where South African and New Zealand delegates were able to relax and unwind after travelling to the USA and were able to meet the ATD team. Dr Karen Stout, president and CEO of ATD, Bill Moses, managing director for The Kresge Foundation’s Education Programme and Dr Alan Amory, Siyaphumelela Project Lead at Saide, welcomed the delegates to DREAM 2023..