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Social Responsiveness Report for 2008

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Social Responsiveness Report for 2008 SOCIAL RESPONSIVENESS REPORT portraits of practice 2008 UCT MISSION STATEMENT Our mission is to be an outstanding teaching and research university, educating for life and addressing the challenges facing our society. Educating for life means that our educational process must provide: a foundation of skills, knowledge and versatility that will last a life-time, despite a changing environment; research-based teaching and learning; critical enquiry in the form of the search for new knowledge and better understanding; and an active developmental role in our cultural, economic, political, scientific and social environment. Addressing the challenges facing our society means that we must come to terms with our past, be cognisant of the present, and plan for the future. In this, it is central to our mission that we: recognise our location in Africa and our historical context; claim our place in the international community of scholars; strive to transcend the legacy of apartheid in South Africa and to overcome all forms of gender and other oppressive discrimination; be flexible on access, active in redress, and rigorous on success; promote equal opportunity and the full development of human potential; strive for inter-disciplinary and inter-institutional collaboration and synergy; and value and promote the contribution that all our members make to realising our mission. To equip people with life-long skills we must and will: promote the love of learning, the skill of solving problems, and the spirit of critical enquiry and research; and take excellence as the bench-mark for all we do. We are committed to academic freedom, critical scholarship, rational and creative thought, and free enquiry. It is part of our mission to ensure that these ideals live; this necessarily requires a dynamic process of finding the balance between freedom and responsibility, rights and obligations, autonomy and accountability, transparency and efficiency, and permanence and transience; and of doing this through consultation and debate. This Mission Statement was formulated by a Working Group of the University Transformation Forum and was affirmed and adopted at a University Assembly on April 24, 1996 CONTENTS SOCIAL RESPONSIVENESS REPORT 2008 Foreword by the Vice-Chancellor 2 Introduction 3 SECTION ONE Institutional level engagement with external constituencies 5 SECTION TWO_Social Responsiveness Policy Framework Social Responsiveness Policy Framework 9 SECTION THREE_Portraits of practice Portraits 15 The public role of public universities: Examining UCT’s response to xenophobia 17 Building capacity to implement the global Vision 2020 programme 24 Community Build in the Construction Studies Programme 29 Combining public health imperatives and legal responses to challenge HIV and violence against women 34 The South African Tuberculosis Vaccine Initiative: Developing new and effective tuberculosis vaccines through high quality basic science and clinical research 39 The Development Policy Research Unit: Promoting social justice and economic growth using academic expertise 44 The Environmental Policy Research Unit 50 Mitigating South Africa’s greenhouse gas emissions 54 Masiphumelele Art Project 61 Township Debating League: Providing the youth of South Africa with the opportunity to develop critical thinking and debating skills 66 SECTION FOUR_Analysis of the portraits of practice Analysis of the Portraits of Practice 71 contents_page one FOREWORD BY THE VICE-CHANCELLOR The case profiles in the report are an indication of UCT’s commitment to finding solutions to the complex challenges that are confronting our society. Engaging with external stakeholders to find solutions to the problems of climate change, poverty, unemployment and a myriad of other challenges, speaks to the core of UCT’s mission, which is to play an “active developmental role in our cultural, economic, political, scientific and social environment”. The case profiles are an expression of a commitment to this mission. A major milestone for the university was the approval of the social responsiveness policy by Senate and Council in 2008. The objective of the policy is to create an environment which positively encourages members of the UCT community to engage with external communities and to develop more coherence to our social responsiveness work. The case profiles in the report represent this growing community of practise that embeds social responsiveness in academic activities. As a university we produce and share knowledge for the benefit and advancement of society and we work to nurture graduates who are not only highly skilled and professional, but also aware of their civic responsibilities. Embedding social responsiveness in the core activities of the university also positions the university as a player in addressing the challenges of society. As our society and the world changes, universities especially are required to respond to different challenges that arise, to ease the plight of the poor, to develop innovative solutions to many and varied problems, to offer informed guidance to those that our democracy has given responsibilities for leadership and service delivery, and to ensure that we engage with partners for purposes of social advancement. At UCT we can be proud of our record of engagement and the commitment of our staff and students as we make our contribution to society at large and in support of our many and varied communities. Dr Max Price VC foreword_page two INTRODUCTION The University of Cape Town (UCT) believes that universities have a crucial role to play in addressing development challenges in the wider society. To this end, many staff members and students are already actively contributing to development in various ways: through research, engagement with policy development, public commentary on development issues and strategies, disseminating knowledge and ideas derived from research, promoting active citizenship among the student population, empowering external constituencies, improving the relevance of the curriculum, and providing opportunities for lifelong learning. The university is committed to strengthening this role in society and has therefore decided to produce an annual social responsiveness report to stimulate ongoing debate within the university and more broadly. The format of the University of Cape Town’s Social Responsiveness Report for 2008 flows from the deliberations of the Social Responsiveness Working Group (SRWG) , which was constituted by the Executive in June 2005. The report is structured as follows: Section One contains a progress report on the implementation of the Memorandum of Understanding signed between the Provincial Government of the Western Cape (PGWC) and the Consortium of Higher Education in the Cape (CHEC) in November 2006 and the colloquium held with the City of Cape Town on 21 November 2007. Other initiatives of the Social Responsiveness Unit in the Institutional Planning Department are outlined. Section Two contains the Social Responsiveness Policy Framework which was approved by Senate on 19 November 2008 and Council on 3 December 2008. Section Three contains a rationale for the data collection methodology and a discussion of the selection of cases, the approach to the interviews, the different ways in which the cases were written up, and the process of presenting the initial cases. Ten qualitative case profiles – ‘portraits of practice’ – are included in the report. Together, they provide a rich overview of social responsiveness practice involving academic staff, students and student societies, and illustrate an interesting range of activities. Section Four provides an analysis of the cases. Drawing from the varied examples of social responsiveness presented in the third section, the analysis looks at themes emerging in relation to the questions explored in the interviews, discusses some issues that surfaced through the case profiles, and identifies areas for engagement within UCT, and between UCT and external constituencies. Members of the Social Responsiveness Working Group in 2008: Ms T Christians (SRC), A/Prof D Cooper (Humanities), Prof F Horwitz (GSB), Ms J Favish (IPD), Mr S Godfrey (Law), Mr J Hodgson (SHAWCO), Mr B Hodkinson (UBUNYE), Prof M Leibbrandt (Commerce), Dr J McMillan (CHED), Mr F Molteno (Health Sciences), Dr J Moodley (Health Sciences), Dr S Oldfield (Science), Prof E van der Spuy (Law), A/Prof H von Blotnitz (EBE). The report was edited by Helene Perold and Associates and designed by UCT’s Communication and Marketing Department. introduction_page three Section One introduction_page four INSTITUTIONAL LEVEL ENGAGEMENT with EXterNAL CONStitUENCieS: Partnership with the Provincial Government of the Western Cape Background sciences; and On 16 October 2006 a historic summit of the Cape • accounting and financial management. Higher Education Consortium (CHEC) and the Provincial Government of the Western Cape (PGWC) took place in Interviews were conducted with 101 former students Cape Town. The event was attended by senior officials identified by the four institutions, slightly less than one fifth of the PGWC, including former premier Ebrahim Rasool of all identified former students. The data show that the and members of his cabinet, academic staff and senior completion rate was quite similar in both interview cycles, management from the four universities that operate in the despite the fact that the second cycle group had been Western Cape. enrolled at their respective institutions more recently. The completion
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