UV Jaaroorsig - University of the Free State

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12 Jaaroorsig • 2007 The draft Charter then deals with constitutive principles relating to both academic and social dimensions of the future UFS. Like a constitution of a state, but adapted to the university environment, it seeks to specify founda tional, constitutive principles and parameters of the future, transformed university. These are intended to give a clear sense of direction to decisions and practices at the University and to provide desired checks and balances. They are meant to guide decision-making and behaviour and to relieve much of the tensions and anxieties of the transformation process in order to speedily arrive at the desired future transformed university and achieve our ideals. A first category of constitutive principles relates to main taining the intrinsic nature of the University as a place of science and scholarship in the context of engagement with the situation and problems of South Africa and Africa. A second group of principles relate to maintaining and strengthening academic culture, quality and excellence. A very important group of principles relates to diversity, institutional culture and social context within the institution. The core constitutive principle is to create a sense of belonging for all members of the university – black and white, male and female, of whatever language, cultural or economic background, sexual or religious orientation, as well as people with disabilities. Constitutive principles that support this goal include the following: • Equity, justice and fairness in dealing with diversity. • Non-dominance amongst diversity, i.e. preventing dominating behaviour of any individual or group over others, irrespective of numbers. The Charter underscores the importance of a redress phase, given the socio-political history of the country and the UFS and the significant backlogs that still exist, and commits the University to urgently complete this phase. But it also starts to conceptualise the end of the redress phase. The Charter suggests that the end of the redress phase may be in sight when an ap pro ximate racial and gender balance in the composition of staff and students is attained. (This idea was echoed when the concept of sufficient diversity was used in de termining the quantified targets of the employ ment equity plan; see below.) Reaching such a point would create condi tions where most of the conflict and anxieties of • Non-marginalisation, respect for minorities and ap preciation for diversity in personalities, individual pre ferences, human skills and workplace skills. • Sufficient diversity in the composition of academic and support staff and students to constitute the neces sary institutional space for nurturing non-racialism, nonsexism, multi culturalism, multilingualism and nondominance. • Sufficient diversity of symbols and artifacts to reflect the diversity of histories and cultures unambiguously and in a balanced, respectful manner. • Substantive and sufficient multilingualism (in terms of the main and other languages) in academic and support activities. • Substantive multiculturalism and embracement of the diversity of cultures. • Balance between competing interests and conflicting objectives by explicitly and innovatively pursuing the difficult trade-offs that may be necessary. This Charter states that we unambiguously commit ourselves to embrace and celebrate the rich diversity of South African peoples within the central region, a diversity that manifests itself in intellectual and philosophical orientation, language, culture, religion, social and economic status, sexual orientation and nationality, among others. We stand for maintaining “sufficient and substantive diversity” because it makes us a better university, a more equitable university, a more innovative university, and an engaged university. Further groups of principles relate to the work en vi ronment, student life, and governance and management. A Defining the redress and post-redress phases the current transition are resolved, and where approximate balance and trade-offs between objectives, forces, interests and interest groups are attained, and where a sense of belonging exists for all members of the university. This would then provide the incubating environment for moving, in the longer run, into the post-redress era, moving further towards full non-racialism, non-sexism, non-discrimination and a normalised university com munity – a state of affairs where old paradigms, divisions, pains, conflicts and tensions will be transcended, and where race and gender have ceased to be decisive factors in determining policies, behaviour, attitudes and thinking of individuals or groups at the University.
notable principle in the latter context requires the sub stantive presence of different population groups and gen ders in governance, management and decision-making bodies. It appears that the ideas and basic principles of the charter have already started to influence thinking and policy-making at the UFS, e.g. in the Employment Equity Plan, where the threshold of “sufficient diversity” was specified numerically for the first time in terms of the designated groups. The latter concept also was important in the residence placement policy (see below), where very low percentages proposed by some traditionally white residences were not accepted since they would not provide sufficient diversity. Charter concepts also permeate the Transformation Plan (see below) and the draft Integrated Three-year Rolling Plan of the UFS for 2008-2010. If this pattern continues, the Charter could be a major breakthrough in the planning unit, transformation discourse on the UFS campus as it may serve to clarify thinking on very complex issues and to guide us on the way forward. University Transformation Plan approved The UFS is now in its fourth phase of transformation. Previous phases were from 1978-1996, 1997-2002 and 2003-2004. The University’s latest Transformation Plan, flowing from the Transformation Plan Task Team (TPTT), was approved by Senate and Council in the first half of 2007. This was the end result of two years of hard work by the TPTT, which was launched early in 2005. The TPTT handed its final report to Management in October 2006. After requesting input and comments from staff and other stakeholders, the Planning Unit, the Exco and the Executive Management drew up a final document. The plan comprises a clear conceptualisation and de finition of transformation as understood by the University, i.e. as a deep and pervasive, intentional and phased process affecting the institutional culture, underlying assumptions, and institutional behaviours and processes of the institution. In addition, it systematically lists remaining transformation goals and challenges adopted by the University, as well as strategies to address these. Approximately forty transformation projects are listed, in four broad categories: • Institutional culture. This includes attaining a sense of belonging for all by transforming the institutional culture from a dominant Afrikaans culture to one that creates a state of non-dominance amidst diversity, enhancing and fostering diversity in student life (including a new Annual Review • 2007 13 residence placement strategy) as well as staff life, and furthering multilingualism by refining the language policy. • Academic responsiveness, relevance and engagement with regard to research, academic programmes, teachinglearning methods and community service, as well as enhanced student access, throughput and success. • Governance and management, in particular the possible refinement and realignment of the vision and mission of the University. • Employment equity, in particular to finalise the employment equity plan in order to accelerate redress by appointing staff from underrepresented groups to attain substantive and sufficient diversity. The Plan also rank the projects in different catego ries of urgency and time-frames. Diversity-related projects were accorded the highest priority, in particular the following: • Increasing diversity in student life, notably a new residence placement policy; • A plan for creating a sense of belonging, based on a thorough analysis of the determinants of such a sense; • Employment equity and redress; • Language policy and diversity, and • Equity in access, throughput and success. The Plan also targets diversity in student extra-curricular activities; interpreting services; multilingualism in front line support services; language empowerment; employment practices and hindrances to redress; postgraduate and international student support, and the finalisation of the Institutional Charter. Most of these projects have proceeded well, and some have been completed in part or as a whole. Unfortunately, as noted above, the organised political resistance against the new residence placement policy impacted heavily on the time and energy available to management. This has definitely delayed the execution of important elements of the Transformation Plan. The promotion of diversity and multilingualism is proceeding well. One challenge is that new complexities of multilingualism are coming to the surface, especially with regard to staff language skills and attaining the ap pro pri ate trade-off between language diversity goals and employment equity goals. This may be a problem especially in the postgraduate sphere. In the process, refinements of the parallelmedium tuition policy (e.g. simultaneous interpretation) are being piloted. There already are many other positive elements. The UFS has now more diverse (or “culturally representative”)
Page 3 and 4: 2007 UV Jaaroorsig UFS Annual Revie
Page 5 and 6: Inhoud • Content 1 Fortifying the
Page 7 and 8: Change and transformation amidst co
Page 9 and 10: vank like ontwikkeling van die geme
Page 11 and 12: 1 Give a thought to Africa! ’neat
Page 13 and 14: These strategic clusters were defin
Page 15 and 16: Jolkol, die nuwe kuierplek vir stud
Page 17: Two important overarching transform
Page 21 and 22: epaling dat koshuise steeds ’n s
Page 23 and 24: These projects include the Grow Our
Page 25 and 26: Onder tutors is 80% van kleur, terw
Page 27 and 28: Annual Review • 2007 21 Die groei
Page 29 and 30: Data for 2004 - 2006 show a marked
Page 31 and 32: der rigstudente in Bloemfontein aan
Page 33 and 34: The total expenditure on research i
Page 35 and 36: sleutelstudies is reeds in 2007 afg
Page 37 and 38: ’n Syaansig van die Chemie-gebou
Page 39 and 40: Annual Review • 2007 33 Die Sentr
Page 41 and 42: internasionale befondsing van ongev
Page 43 and 44: Annual Review • 2007 37 The SIFE
Page 45 and 46: kontak in November 2007 om te verse
Page 47 and 48: Annual Review • 2007 41 ’n Vert
Page 49 and 50: Annual Review • 2007 43 Ontwikkel
Page 51 and 52: Construction on a new computer lab.
Page 53 and 54: We prepare students for a career in
Page 55 and 56: Annual Review • 2007 49 The manag
Page 57 and 58: Lugversorging is ook in die Teologi
Page 59 and 60: A First-year Success Week takes pla
Page 61 and 62: Studente bly die hart waarom alles
Page 63 and 64: Die vernaamste eienskappe van die h
Page 65 and 66: Prof. Sakkie Pretorius, Renée Prin
Page 67 and 68: The growth in general research outp
Page 69 and 70:
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UV Jaaroorsig - University of the Free State

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