Page 50 - Transformation Report

5. Reshaping of the Three Academic Missions

Alongside Learning and Teaching, the core missions of research and engagement were decoupled as part of the University’s
organisational redesign process in 2019 to create two separate executive portfolios, namely Research, Innovation, and
Internationalisation and Engagement and Transformation Portfolio. This signals the equal priority and status the University
attaches to these three academic missions as we traverse the next decade. The core academic missions’ aim to collectively
impact the range of complex, multidimensional challenges facing the world, as reflected in the United Nations’ Sustainable
Development Goals, African Union Agenda 2063, and South Africa’s National Development Plan. The basis of the Institutional
Research and Innovation Strategy is informed by the six transversal institutional research themes, namely:
• Ocean and coastal sciences
• Social justice and democracy
• Environmental stewardship and sustainable livelihoods
• Innovation and the digital economy
• Origins, culture, heritage, and memory
• Humanising pedagogy

6. Reimagining Engagement

In reimagining engagement, the Chair of CriSHET (Critical Studies in Higher Education Transformation) has been involved in
co-creating the Hubs of Convergence. An Inception Committee was set up to map out various projects that might fall under
the auspices of the Hubs of Convergence. The philosophy and approach to engagement are being reimagined for greater
impact and the following interventions have been initiated:
• Development of a framework document on engagement and transformation against which to review the
University’s engagement approach

• Signature projects that align with the philosophy of the Hubs of Convergence (one of which relates to ‘remodelling’
the Bird Street Campus)

• Additional support for the scholarship of engagement, including a seminar series on reimagining engagement

With the onset of the pandemic, the Hub of Convergence initiative was repurposed to facilitate and support the work of both
the Community Convergence Workstream and the University Convergence Fund Deployment Committee. This presented an
opportunity for a study focusing on the University’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic to deepen scholarship around the
conception of community engagement and its practical realisation, both immediately and in the long term.

In collaboration with the Central University of Technology, Stellenbosch University and the University of Cape Town, the Chair
of CriSHET is developing an Online Resource for Higher Education Transformation (ORHET) for the sector. This is envisaged as
an extensive interactive archive and collaborative platform for transformation-related teaching and learning resources, training
modes and platforms, research, and good practices. The official launch of this resource will be in 2021.

7. Reimagining Basic and Post-School Education and Training

A key area of engagement involved participating at several levels in addressing the crisis in basic education, which has been
further heightened by the challenges caused by COVID-19 in a deeply unequal schooling system. The Faculty of Education’s
Centre for Community Schools (CCS) continued to work with under-served schools and communities to develop alternative
approaches to school improvement that are relevant and responsive to contextual realities. Over the past 10 years, the CCS
has been deeply engaged in understanding the key elements of a contextually responsive education system and collaborated
with several schools in the greater Nelson Mandela Bay Metro and rural Eastern Cape to reconceptualise “community schools”.

In 2019, the CCS was awarded a National Research Foundation grant to develop theoretical and practice-based models of
school improvements that are relevant and responsive to the realities and socio-economic issues of schools and the communities
they serve. In 2019/20 the Centre produced and published “Reimagining our Schools, Strengthening our Communities”, its
first publication on the topic of community schools.

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