Wamkelekile, Welkom
Introduction by Acting Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Emeritus Professor Martin Hall
04 November 2022
In an unprecedented year, how can we chart our collective progress towards transformation? The UCT Transformation Report 2021 seeks to map the University of Cape Town’s (UCT) transformation journey over rough new terrain.
Introduction
The year 2021 was almost apocalyptic. We started the year in the trail of nine months of lockdown and emergency remote teaching, with no end to the COVID-19 pandemic in sight. Then, in April, a runaway fire on Table Mountain forced the mass evacuation of students from university residences, severely damaged eight buildings and destroyed irreplaceable collections and archives. The lockdown continued through a bleak winter that stretched our staff to the limits, compromised the quality of our teaching and ended with a generation of first-year students who had never set foot on our campuses. And yet, as this report shows, a resilient core of faculties and support departments continued resolutely, moving the university along the pathway of transformation, diversity and inclusion.
As in previous years, the UCT Transformation Report 2021 is structured around a set of benchmarks, designed to capture the specificity and quality of transformation work, and also to track changes through time. This approach serves as a structure within which faculties and departments in all parts of the university can locate and align their specific work and objectives with the broader picture. As the commentary that follows points out, there are no simple answers or self-evident solutions. And there is value in the work of transformation, in and for itself. In this, we owe a lot to those who have been prepared to serve on Transformation Committees (TC), on the Transformation Forum (TF), the Employment Equity Forum (EEF) and the Institutional Forum. This work is voluntary, often difficult and sometimes distressing. Without the extent and quality of this engagement, we would have little to show.
In its conclusion, this report identifies four continuing pathways to transformation. The first pathway is the set of benchmarks, now used consistently for three consecutive years, that crystallise shared goals in transformation, inclusivity and diversity. The second pathway continues the institutional response to the three benchmark reports that identified the need for wide-ranging transformative change; the UCT Staff Inclusivity Survey, the Institutional Reconciliation and Transformation Commission Report and the Mayosi Report. The third pathway is the journey towards employment equity, which in 2021, included design, consultation and approval of a new Employment Equity Plan, meeting the requirements of the university’s Employment Equity Policy that was approved in 2020. The fourth pathway comprises the continuing work of revising policies, processes and strategies; the dismantling racism strategy, the new Sexual Misconduct Policy, the work of the Special Tribunal on Sexual and Gender Based Violence (SGBV), the revised Disability Policy and the focus, through the year, on LGBTQI+ rights.
In all of this, a key enabling role has been played by the dedicated staff of the Office for Inclusivity and Change (OIC) and the SGBV special tribunal who are often so very close to the fear and fire of transformation work.
Emeritus Professor Martin Hall
Acting Deputy Vice-Chancellor (DVC) for Transformation, Student Affairs and Social Responsiveness
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Mama Thembi – one of the three Thembis of Phillippi by women sculptors Angela Mac Pherson, Jen Bam and Sean Mac Pherson. Commissioned by the UCT GSB, the concept is a celebration of women as holders and creators of safe spaces. The vision was for these sculptures to create areas in the open back area of Phillippi Village to seed the future garden, and to create places of safety for plants, birds and people to gather and grow in the harsh climate. Monwabisi Dasi did the welding work with the help of 36 other artists and artisans from Phillippi, Napier and Muizenberg.
An introduction to the 2021 Transformation Report
The UCT Transformation Report 2021 is titled “Fear, flame and metamorphosis: transformation, diversity and inclusion in uncertain times”. It is titled to reflect that in 2021, the UCT community was challenged with racism, queer- and transphobia, and socio-economic disparities. The fire in the Jagger Reading Room brought forward important questions about how coloniality and gatekeeping continue to frame UCT as an exclusive and inaccessible space. Yet even with these challenges the university, through transformation agents, was able to transform these difficult realities through tactical and innovative actions. Through cohesive inclusivity strategy initiations in faculties and departments; developments in succession planning, retention and recruitment; recognition of the voluntary work of transformation committees through the inclusion of key performance areas for transformation, inclusion and diversity work in job descriptions; dialogical spaces, seminars, capacity strengthening, training and other events-based interventions, campaigns and curated art interventions; and innovations in research, teaching and learning, current realities were metamorphosised into safer and more affirming spaces.
How to read the 2021 Transformation Report
Please click and slide/swipe to the left to see the next point:
An overview of transformation
Setting the scene for the 2021 Transformation Report.
Benchmark results for 2021
Introducing UCT’s transformation benchmarks.
Looking ahead
The conclusion and recommendations of the 2021 Transformation Report.
Transformation resources and references
Transformation, inclusivity, and diversity is based on continual growth and development. Listed below are the articles and poems referenced in this report, and some other useful texts to help make sense of 2021.
