UJ Perspectives
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Contents A Message from the Chancellor – Professor Njabulo S Ndebele 5 7
Foreword – Professor Ihron Rensburg Council of the University – Professor Roy Marcus
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Office of the Deputy Vice-Chancellor: Academic – Professor Angina Parekh
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Office of the Deputy Vice-Chancellor: Finance – Jaco van Schoor
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Office of the Deputy Vice-Chancellor: Internationalisation, Advancement and Student Affairs – Professor Tinyiko Maluleke 20 Office of the Deputy Vice-Chancellor: Research, Postgraduate Studies and the Library – Professor Tshilidzi Marwala 22 Office of the Deputy Vice-Chancellor: Strategic Services – Professor Derek van der Merwe
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Office of the Registrar – Professor Kinta Burger
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Marketing and Brand Management
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UJ’s Campuses
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Division of Academic Development and Support (ADS)
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Division for Internationalisation
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Library and Information Centre (LIC)
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Arts and Culture Centre
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UJ Sport
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Faculty of Art, Design and Architecture (FADA)
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Faculty of Economic and Financial Sciences (FEFS)
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Faculty of Education
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Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment (FEBE)
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Faculty of Health Sciences (FHS)
111
Faculty of Humanities
125
Faculty of Law
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Faculty of Management
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Faculty of Science
169
Acknowledgements
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Professor Njabulo S Ndebele, Chancellor
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A Message from the Chancellor
The University of Johannesburg (UJ) has achieved a great deal in the near-decade of its existence. Faced with the question of how to give new expression to the academic and intellectual principles of the university, in a manner that would align it with and actively foster the human rights dispensation of our Constitution, it has forged for itself an identity unique among South African universities, among world universities. In its development as a successful post-apartheid institution, UJ has created, and held open a space for individuals of many diverse cultures and languages to grow into a single well-integrated, multi-campus university community. The cultivation of this new kind of South African society is an organic process. While rules or regulations can contribute significantly to its creation, they are by no means decisive. Wise leadership never decrees that it will be achieved, but rather creates the complex, sensitive conditions that stimulate and nurture it. It is a unity not just proclaimed but deeply experienced. From great diversity has come a great university. UJ’s powerful Vision states unequivocally that it will be an international university of choice, anchored in Africa, dynamically shaping the future.
The decades ahead hold enormous promise for the University of Johannesburg. It could not be otherwise for the University named after the city that attracts to it the entire continent, and much of the world. Enjoy the story of UJ and this book. Both are very special to us.
A MESSAGE FROM THE CHANCELLOR
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Professor Ihron L Rensburg, Vice-Chancellor and Principal
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Foreword
Since its inception nearly a decade ago, the University of Johannesburg has followed a simple formula: A + hW = At Ambition (that is: a magnetic guiding vision, a sure sense of the goal) plus hard Work (aligning each operating element with the vision and holding course with determination, energy and good judgement) equals Accomplishment. An indelible element of UJ’s Vision is its context. We are an African university situated here at the southern tip of the continent. Just as each part of the complex UJ system fits in with its overall goals, so UJ has committed itself to advancing South Africa’s national strategic priorities for achieving a democratic, inclusive and prosperous society. This dedication and the way in which UJ serves it results in a unique blend of features in the University, making it one of a kind in the suite of South African, indeed global, universities.
It means that UJ serves the whole of our nation, and beyond, embracing our upper and middle classes as much as we embrace our urban and rural poor and working classes. A dream of bringing the University into the heart of Soweto was realised with the completion of UJ’s splendid campus there, and the campus recently hosted a town hall meeting of young African leaders with US President Barack Obama. The photos on the following pages display the campus’ spacious and harmonious design, its elegant buildings, while pictures of the students capture its zesty, youthful spirit. UJ and Government both contributed to its development, with R200 million and R400 million respectively. Then, in service of our students, a major upgrading project is currently underway on the Doornfontein Campus: the venerable John Orr Building is getting an interior makeover with the latest in scientific equipment, and the recently purchased Perskor Building will soon be completely refitted with laboratories and workshops for engineering technological sciences. Plans are being considered for a Learning Centre on Kingsway adjacent to the Library, an environment to inspire all who enter it. It is the turn of the Bunting Road Campus next, and UJ will have four new and attractive campuses with facilities second to none. The inclusive admissions policy, which the University’s Mission entails, means that it has to rise to the challenge of helping first-time students succeed in academically demanding courses. ‘Access for success’ is the watchword. After plenty of hard teamwork, was the First Year Experience. It is a process unique to UJ that embraces often inadequately prepared school-leavers, supports them, nurtures them, uplifts them, and helps them love their studies and university. Ultimately, it produces around 11 000 confident, well-prepared young men and women for the professional and
FOREWORD
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vocational workplace every year. You will read more about this inside this book. Each student, on first registration, is given a copy of the Student Charter, which outlines the twelve qualities of a UJ graduate. Perhaps not all will keep this standard always in mind or strive to achieve it, but when they graduate, the life-altering and mind-changing process of a diploma/degree programme ensures that each will have those twelve desiderata to some degree.
The University sees its Mission as ‘inspiring its community to transform and serve humanity through innovation and the collaborative pursuit of knowledge’. The frontiers of knowledge are daily being extended in the laboratories, the technical workshops, the libraries and the transfer stations of UJ. The research agenda is extensive and accredited outputs, from the nine Faculties and thirteen research centres, have almost tripled in half the planned time. Other markers of research stature include the four new National Research Foundation (NRF) Chairs, each, in the Faculties of Science (Indigenous Plant Use), Humanities (African Diplomacy and Foreign Policy), Law (International Law) and Education (Education and Care in Childhood). The University has 133 NRF-rated researchers, including six A-raters; its Postdoctoral Researcher contingent is flourishing, having doubled in a few years from 60 to 120, with a goal of reaching 150 by end 2014. In the second half of 2011 it became evident that a phase was ending. The merger had been accomplished, operations were proceeding smoothly, much had been achieved. The University was a sturdy and vigorous youngster. It was time to look confidently to the future. So, in September of that year, a process of consultative engagement with the University community was begun to map the forward course, and the result, released in October 2012, was the Charter of UJ’s Vision, Mission and Values. For the next ten years, we have set six strategic goals (that reflect our ambitious 2025 Strategic Plan) for ourselves to execute so that we can further elevate our global academic reputation and stature as well as make our unique contribution to South Africa and the world. These goals are: •
Global Excellence in Research and Innovation
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Global Excellence in Teaching and Learning
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An International Profile Fit for Global Excellence and Stature
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An Outstanding Student Experience
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Active Global Reputation Management, and
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An Institution and People fit for Global Excellence and Stature.
As well as being an institution priding itself on its accessible excellence, after only 9 years, UJ has also established itself as an institution of global excellence and world class stature. In 2013, the authoritative QS (Quacquarelli Symonds) World University Rankings ranked UJ among the top 4% of universities in the world – placing 600–650 of 16 500 universities – making us one of seven universities in South Africa and one of thirteen ranked universities in Africa. Furthermore, we are also ranked among the top 1% of universities in the BRICS countries, that is Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – placing 61st among this economic bloc’s 6 200 universities. Moreover, the URAP rankings that focus solely on research output, research impact and global research
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collaboration, place UJ among the top ten universities in Africa. It is noteworthy that in both the QS rankings, which focus on academic and employer reputation, research output and impact, teaching, staff with PhDs and the level of internationalisation, UJ obtained particularly high scores in the categories of academic and employer reputation, and international faculty. UJ is also the first and only African university admitted to the highly respected consortium of 28 research-intensive universities in the world – Universitas 21. All of these accomplishments are the result of the considerable efforts of our staff and students, heads of departments, senior and executive leadership, our Council, and our Alumni. This is also an important endorsement of the growing international stature of UJ. The photographs and text in this book articulate the unique character that UJ has forged for itself, and the beauty and strength of its accomplishments. We shall not pause to celebrate for too long, however. The possibilities created by these very successes are calling for attention; the path ahead is exciting. It leads to an entirely new definition of what a great African city university could be.
Executive Mayor of Johannesburg: Mpho Parks Tau, UJ Chancellor: Professor Njabulo S Ndebele, US President: Barack Obama, UJ Vice-Chancellor and Principal: Professor Ihron L Rensburg, UJ Chair of Council: Professor Roy Marcus. During his first visit to South Africa, an Honorary Doctorate was conferred on President Obama by the University of Johannesburg.
FOREWORD
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Doornfontein Campus
FOREWORD
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Professor Roy Marcus, Chair of Council 12 UJ PERSPECTIVES
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Council of the University
Chaired by Professor Roy Marcus, the University of Johannesburg’s Council is the highest authority in the institution. It is autonomous and ultimately accountable for all decisions made at UJ. The 30 Council members are a carefully-chosen cross section of stakeholders, leaders in business and industry, in the educational sector and civil society, and all those divisions of society that have an interest in the University’s business. Professor Marcus has chaired Council since March 2006, has been a member since its inception in 2005, and served on its predecessor during the merger phase.
Council is responsible for guiding the University in formulating its objectives for the future, developing the practical strategies whereby it will achieve those objectives, and articulating the operational policies that will be conducive to attaining those goals in the best possible way. In all this, Council works in close co-operation with the University’s Management Executive Committee: Professor Ihron Rensburg, Vice-Chancellor and Principal, with five deputy vicechancellors. At an annual indaba of these two teams, matters of importance (like the University’s decision to become a global player) are closely analysed and discussed. UJ is fortunate in that Council and Management enjoy an excellent relationship, one that has been vigorously tried and tested, and has now matured into an alignment in which each gives its best for the common purpose. Should this crucial relationship break down, there is no leadership and universities flounder, as witnessed by the six institutions of higher learning placed under administration by the Minister of Higher Education and Training in the past few years. It was perhaps this desperate state of affairs that led the Minister to introduce amendments to the statutes governing universities and their councils, and to arrogate powers to himself which weakened their autonomy. Wise academic leadership expressed its concerns at this development (an article by Professor Rensburg was published in the Business Day of 31 January 2013) and a meeting with the Minister to review the proposed legislation was granted. The financial well-being of the University and its ability to execute plans in accordance with its means are also Council’s responsibility. In response to an environment of reducing government subsidies (which higher education across the board, internationally also, has experienced over some years) and of ever-increasing demands on university budgets, the Council and Management of UJ have come up with a policy of aggressively pursuing third-stream income, and they have a formula for its implementation. Where first-stream income is subsidy moneys and second-stream is student fees, third-stream funds are obtained largely from contract or sponsored research, entrepreneurial or commercialisation activities, and provision of services including unsubsidised programmes. A new University Commercial Enterprise, ‘Resolution Circle’ has been set up, utilising the facilities and expertise of the University to offer government, business and industry answers to their technical, managerial and scientific problems.
COUNCIL OF THE UNIVERSITY
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UJ’s leadership has displayed a mature tolerance of those things which are beyond its remit, like the present public secondary-school system. Given its ‘open door’ policy towards students, the University has taken on the challenge of helping great numbers of school-leavers succeed at tertiary level. Management’s strategy for handling this situation was to adopt a policy of ‘access for success’, and task a whole well-staffed and -funded division, Academic Development and Support, with creating ancillary learning interventions. The plan resulted in the First Year Experience, an integrated set of procedures that has succeeded brilliantly. First year pass rates are high. Each year, about 11 000 well-trained graduates are given to society. Sensitivity is another feature of UJ’s leadership – an ability to let things be, to develop at their own pace and in their own way. Rather than take decisions to regulate a sensitive situation, Management at UJ are capable of leaving it alone to resolve itself in an organic and natural way. This is a mark of mature governance, an attitude that those in positions of power often find difficult. The language question was one of these sensitive areas. No absolute policy was handed down by Council; rather a watchful laissez-faire monitoring of the situation was employed. Now, nearly ten years after UJ opened its doors, everyone’s language rights are well-served, and the potentially damaging heat has gone out of the issue. Another sensitive situation that resolved itself naturally over time and with a light hand from leadership was the relation of the Technikon Witwatersrand (TWR) technology departments to the Rand Afrikaans University science departments. Now, they function in happy tandem in a faculty such as Engineering and the Built Environment, enabling it to offer industry a comprehensive service. Finally, the transformation of UJ into a university for and of our new diverse society has also happened quietly and by getting the conditions for its growth right, rather than by Council fiat. Council was involved in the final development and adoption of UJ’s Vision, Mission and Values, and the Six Strategic Goals for achieving them, and in the process it displayed the breadth of vision that results from holistic, systemic thinking. Take for example Goal One: Excellence in Research and Innovation and Goal Two: Excellence in Teaching and Learning. Both are simultaneously a recognition of the developing character of society, a means of accelerating third-stream income through capitalising on our knowledge enterprise as well as an acknowledgement that the structure of the old academic disciplines are changing; their once strict boundaries are dissolving. Our approach to teaching and learning has to be nimble, adaptive and innovative, as programmes and higher degrees are now multi-disciplinary in character; scholarship in the old ‘humanities’ are more rigorous; and the sciences are approached with a ‘soft touch’ (to use Prof Marcus’ phrasing). UJ’s programmes will be always conscious of the whole systemic context of science and technology, in other words, of its human and social framework.
UJ’s leadership also displays remarkable energy in implementing policy. Part of the University’s Vision is to be ‘an international university of choice’. No sooner had this been formulated, than a Division for Internationalisation was set up, under the dynamic Directorship of Dr Pinkie Mekgwe, and a delegation of high-level personnel led by the VC embarked on a tour of six African countries, establishing ties with universities and relevant institutions along the way. The VC secured a place for UJ in the exclusive Universitas 21 group
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of research universities, intended as an international network for strategic thinking on globally important issues. UJ is the only university on the African continent to be granted membership. Council is the final safeguard of corporate governance at UJ. Being in part a publicly funded institution, the University is aware of its duty in this regard and subscribes to the principles of good corporate governance in King III. To achieve good governance and monitor it on an ongoing basis, the Registrar is tasked with ensuring that each decision-making body in UJ works according to a comprehensive Charter which has been approved by Council, Senate, and where necessary by the Management Executive Committee. Each Charter must be aligned with the overall policy framework set up by Council and higher Management, including such policies as the Research Policy, the Intellectual Property Policy, and the Whistleblowing Policy. These policies in turn are aligned with strategic national objectives. The fact that the University of Johannesburg has achieved the success it now enjoys, after the tumult of the merger and its initial settling-down years, is a tribute to the quality of its leadership.
COUNCIL OF THE UNIVERSITY
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