It was my great honour to be invited, by the fabulous Dr Bernadette Johnson, to the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) Transformation Community of Practice (COP) retreat on Friday, 7 November. At the meeting I became Fidel Castro... in the way he was (amongst many other things) famous for speaking for hours and hours. Well, in my case it was just one hour, but it went by in a flash. My dear friend and former colleague, Dr Bongiwe Mncwango was meant to join me but she became inundated with too much work and so I presented on my own, insights from and reflections on the 2023 "State of Transformation in South Africa's Public Universities" report. Assembled on the call of Dr Bernie Johnson were the chairs of transformation committees across Wits faculties and divisions, as well as champions of equity and inclusion from a number of Wits offices. The COP retreat was opened by Wits DVC Prof. Garth Stevensen, who set the tone by putting the present transformation moment into the history of transformation of the (European) university type and its parallels in South Africa, and many aspects of the uniqueness of SA public universities, particularly their colonial and apartheid origins, and the need for transforming the system and its institutions with the dawn of a new democratic era in 1994. It was closes by the brilliant intellectual (and very engaging and funny) Prof Mlamuli Hlatshwayo from the University of Johannesburg. The TOC Report I presented is freely available.
Executive Summary and
Full Report are available
here.
