Universities should be places where debate is encouraged, as debate builds collegiality, which builds collective strength. Universities need to make space for and encourage human, and not just academic, relationships.
In June this year I wrote an op-ed for Daily Maverick titled “University transformation should build unity, collegiality and trust — not create angry victims”.
My intention was to describe national developments in academic and research development and to raise some interests and concerns about this work.
I drew on 20 years of my academic engagement, the last part of which at the University of Cape Town (UCT) focused directly on this work and included me conceptualising and running the mid-career academic programme, Next Generation Professoriate, which I founded in 2015. I alerted colleagues but didn’t hear very much back. It is not a trendy issue.
To my surprise, earlier this month a Next Generation Professoriate member sent me the Daily Maverick article by Alan Cliff, Floretta Boonzaier, Lebo Ramma, Gillian Ferguson and Elelwani Ramugondo: “UCT staff Transformation needs to be understood in context of history and complexity”.
Hostile and defensive
It is a hostile and defensive piece that claims, among other things, that “we believe that debating the histories, merits, perceived shortfalls and misdirection of the work in the media risks affecting the very colleagues and groups among whom the work is designed to build support networks and create the conditions for individual and systemic transformation in higher education”.
I start my response with a comment on the deep irony of this claim. The authors chose to focus on a small part of my piece and attack me in public without ever contacting me to indicate that they had any concerns. So much for honouring their own claim about “risk” to the work of supporting academics, and so much for their understanding of collegiality, the major argument of my piece.
But let’s celebrate the upside – they debate my views, and universities should be places where debate is encouraged.
I want to return to the question of collegiality to show how a contribution by Cliff et al is damaging to vital attempts to build collegiality. My article was not “about” UCT, although it used my experience of UCT for some of its examples. Perforce my response must focus on UCT because the authors make it their battleground.
Fortunately, I am able to start on a positive note. UCT has a new vice-chancellor, Professor Mosa Moshabela, who took up the position on 1 August 2024.
‘Fractured, polarised and divided’
On taking office he gave an interview to Edwin Naidu of the Sunday Times: “The thing that bothers me most, that preoccupies my mind, is that UCT people feel fractured, polarised and divided. They don’t feel united as a community. We’ve got to create an enabling environment for people to thrive and succeed.”
He added: “I want everyone at UCT to feel at home, to feel that they are in a place where they can be the best versions of themselves.”
In one of his first communications to staff he wrote: “I start this journey not only full of optimism and hope for UCT, but also mindful of the fact that I will draw from the collective strength of all of you in the UCT community.”
Collective strength is built, collegiality builds collective strength. My refrain is that universities need to make space for and encourage human, and not just academic, relationships.
On 29 August Professor Ameeta Jaga gave her professorial inaugural address. Professor Moshabela introduced the event, presenting a model of openness and friendliness. He (embarrassingly) singled out my work with the Next Generation Professoriate and emphasised the importance of community, of making space for difference, of building bridges and of addressing what he has understood to be UCT’s difficult social environment.
The event was also notable for evidence of the achievement of the Next Generation Professoriate. Professor Jaga was an integral member of the Next Generation Professoriate, and six of her fellow members took the time to celebrate with her. None of the authors of the Daily Maverick article attended.
One of my concerns has been that UCT has on the one hand bemoaned the decline of morale – evidenced by staff leaving and taking early retirement – and on the other implicitly recognised the need to do something about this. But there is still the residue of the toxic environment left behind by the departing vice-chancellor, Professor Mamokgethi Phakeng.
The concerns that I expressed in my original Daily Maverick article remain and are, if anything, heightened by the Cliff et al piece. The authors argue that my submission assumed that “only white academics must continue to hold the future agenda for transformation, even as post-retirees and in perpetuity, framing them as indispensable ‘saviours’, and black academics as perpetually dependent”.
For the record this is not an assumption that I make, and the whole intention of the Next Generation Professoriate was to create a new generation of black and female professors and university leaders.
My initial submission asked about the suitability of Professor Ramugondo to lead projects like the Next Generation Professoriate. In the light of the Cliff et al article, I would say that my concerns are confirmed. They are certainly echoed by others, for example Emeritus Professor Tim Crowe.
It is possibly relevant to quote from the Mpati Commission, which in October 2023 issued its final report on problems of governance at UCT.
It recommended disciplinary measures against Professor Ramugondo: “Ramugondo’s views are not only wrong and contrary to Council’s Code of Conduct, but are a cause for serious concern, particularly because she occupies the sensitive position of DVC of Transformation at UCT tasked with building inclusiveness.” (Para 627.)
Problems
Because Cliff et al ignored much of what my first article was arguing, I want to repeat some of the major points. Higher education in South Africa faces many problems – under-funding; increasing loads on academics; failures of the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS); pressure to publish or perish; concern about placing in the university global rankings system; government pressure to meet Department of Labour quotas; and pressure by student and staff groupings that emerged at the time of #RhodesMustFall to change university cultures.
Added to this are global pressures including audit cultures and the trend to move away from tenure-track academic posts to short-term contracts, which has resulted in two categories of academic – one with job security, the other without.
In my previous piece, I sought to describe and analyse ONE of the challenges, namely addressing justifiable concern about university academic staffing. This includes replacing a cohort of ageing professors, changing the racial and gender composition of staff (especially at senior levels) and preparing a new generation of scholars – from postgraduate to early career staff.
I described a number of initiatives across the country and made the point that beyond just supporting individuals with funding and other opportunities, it was important to recognise the importance of community, which is to say the work of bringing people together, building trust, creating space for difference, for debate.
My experience at UCT is that this is difficult work for a number of reasons. UCT’s spatial geography separates staff – the university is spread across many locales, and in the ordinary run of events one may never meet colleagues on different campuses.
This is compounded by a strict approach to faculty organisation where faculties are run fairly autonomously and people in one faculty may similarly never or seldom know people in other faculties. Even within faculties, departments can be quite cut off from one another.
Barriers to forging community
Age, gender, race, research interest and many other factors provide further barriers to forging community. All of this was made even more difficult by the racialised polarisations generated by Fallism, which accentuated racial difference, raised levels of intolerance and made it difficult to cultivate a climate of debate and collegiality.
Most universities face similar problems, although the permutations will be different.
One of the major arguments I made is that one needs to put extra effort into building community precisely because these generally do not emerge organically, except in small silos, for example within departments or in a cluster of departments.
The nature of academic work has become more atomised, pressures and loads are increasing, and with Covid-19 staff worked at home and got used to this form of solitary work. One needs to recognise this need and actively work to create community. Simply having an academic support initiative is no guarantee that community will emerge.
No additions
When I was researching my previous Daily Maverick op-ed, I looked for updates to the website that I had constructed for the Next Generation Professoriate. I was disappointed to find that there had been no additions or changes since I left my position in December 2021.
Ordinarily one would expect to find some form of publicity of the programme since this is part of the strategy of building community and has the advantage of giving the work profile and legitimacy. In my day I wrote many newsletters and stories profiling the initiative and its members, and these can still be perused on the UCT website.
In my post-retirement years (2022 onward) I retained links with many Next Generation Professoriate members and had a sense of the work and movement of the programme, and became concerned. To discuss my fears, I reached out to the new director, Professor Alan Cliff.
I was happy that Professor Cliff had taken over leadership of the Next Generation Professoriate because he had always been generous in responding positively to my requests to run workshops on writing narratives about teaching philosophy, a necessary part of the UCT promotion process. He is an expert on this. I met Professor Cliff and he updated me on developments.
The Next Generation Professoriate has been a success at UCT — between 2015 and 2021 more than 80% of members were promoted to either associate or full professor. More meaningfully, the community that formed within the Next Generation Professoriate was vibrant, mutually supporting, and independent.
Many have gone on to become heads of department and deputy deans. I can do nothing more than urge UCT to continue to fund the Next Generation Professoriate and to encourage, as widely as possible, a culture of debate and collegiality. DM