Page 42 - Transformation Indaba Report

Excellence pipeline: Lots of support, for PG students, and impacts on research. Those who can’t publish or supervise
lots of focus on how many we enroll and how many we grad- students will not make it in the system, into Associate
uate. We provide a lot of support in terms of all the work- Professor/Professor rank. As we recruit people into the
shops, with the data that you showed, and then there is a system, we need to think very carefully about their teaching
lot of support and lots targeting early career researchers. loads so that we can build the other academic missions to
On the extreme end of the pipeline, you have high-end ensure they’re in line to progress and get us the picture we
research-active professoriate (SARChI Chairs/Directors of want to see. The VC spoke about how it takes decades to
entities/rated researchers) and again the system is geared change things in the university. We accept that it’s going take
up to support high performance. There’s funding for those a decade for somebody to move from lecturer to Associate
researchers. And then there’s what I call the “missing mid- Professor. We accept that because you’ve got to produce
dle” making up the bulk of the system/bulk of research- the goods. One PhD student will take three / four / five years
ers. Yet in all the interventions, we seem to be targeting to produce. But I think there must be a deliberate intention
mostly early-career researchers and firmly established high- to support people so that they can advance in the Academy.
performing highflyers. But the system is not made up of ex-
tremes but rather made up of the bulk of researchers. We Another issue we face is: now we have this huge
need to think very carefully about what type of support we investment in high performers whom I also call high-risk
provide in terms of research support for those academics because if we lose a Chair…let’s say we were to lose Prof
because they make up the bulk of the system. What do we Paul Watts then how are we going to replace Paul? What do
do with them once they enter the system? we build around our Chairs by way of support? We give our
Chairs postgraduate and doctoral students but no technical
Data shows we are attracting a lot of black academics as staff, which the Chair must raise money for. If the Chair were
associate lecturers/lecturers who make up the lower ranks to leave, we then want to recruit a new Chair. Then what will
of the Academy but what do we do with them once they’re happen? As at top levels, we do not have enough black
here? We bury them in teaching! The teaching loads are so people. We’ve got competing needs - to attract a highflyer
high. When I did my first teaching stint at Mandela Uni (as a academic vs need to transform the Academy, (which is our
lecturer + senior lecturer) I had 120 students, requiring me responsibility). Our recruitment is inflexible because we can-
to replicate the practical, (on a Tuesday and Thursday) not keep bringing in white males (which is correct). What
because our labs only accommodate 60 students. In some must we then do? Whilst understanding and accepting the
instances, we are not growing our infrastructure to absorb transformation imperative and even being a champion for
the massification that was spoken of earlier. The person who the transformation imperative, there must be a nuanced
took my position now has a class of 240+ students, therefore approach - where we weigh up the strategic nature of the
his practical must be repeated four times. The growth in the recruitment together against the transformation imperative.
system hasn’t been matched with a corresponding growth in And you have customized support for the high-end skill that
infrastructure and numbers of academic staff which means we may need to replace, accepting that losing a professor
people spend a lot of time on teaching. Academics there- and appointing 2 junior lecturers is not going to cut it if
fore do not find time to do research which then restrains we want to remain research active. (Kwezi)
their ability to publish, to supervise M and D students, and

I deliberately chose to join this breakaway room because I research outputs, show how many conferences you’ve been
am a person who is interested in wanting to pursue the pro- to, how many postgraduate students you’ve supervised, be
fessor route. I’d like to do it here at Mandela University, but involved in decolonisation and curriculum change and… the
I’m concerned that I don’t know how to do it because it’s a list goes on and on. So, while I continue to advance in my
process which is very clouded in mystery. There are policy own career, the point which I want to make is, this is a difficult
documents which say “publish or perish” and you have to system to be part of this idea of wanting to invest in the
hit off teaching and learning, hit off engagement, hit off associate and the full professor appointment rank. (Glen)

NelsoN MaNdela UNiversity • traNsforMatioN iNdaba • 2022 36