The University of Port Elizabeth, the smallest Afrikaner HWU in South Africa, was established in 1964 and is currently situated on 830 hectares of nature reserve alongside the sea in the city of Port Elizabeth, which is now known as the Nelson Mandela Metropole. A few species of wildlife, such as duiker (a species of small buck), can be viewed with the naked eye from the offices in the tower block, the tallest building on campus. The current campus was established in the early 1970s and consists of modern concrete buildings, which some people have found unaesthetic, especially when compared to the old traditional campuses of Rhodes and Fort Hare (see virtual campus tour http://www.upe.ac.za/start.asp).
In September 2003, a merger agreement was signed between UPE and two other higher education institutions in the Nelson Mandela Metro region, namely, the Port Elizabeth Technikon, a historically white technikon (HWT) and Vista University, a black university. UPE is currently a dual and parallel medium university with a total student population of 13, 500 of which 7,000 are distance education students.
Since 1994, the university, under the visionary and progressive leadership of its then Vice Chancellor, Professor Jan Kirsten, developed progressive new policies and established democratic representative structures, such as a democratically elected governing council and institutional forum, ahead of similar processes at other HWUs. These developments were in accordance with new national policies. Equity policies were developed through consultative processes. This achievement was laudable given the institution’s apartheid history and its strong links to the Broederbond.28 Sadly, however, this study has found that the impact of these well-intentioned policies have not always been felt at the departmental levels of faculties on the campus.
Historically, the university did not have a strong research culture like some of the bigger Afrikaans HWUs, or its neighbouring English medium HWU. The institution’s orientation towards teaching is still evident today. The new senior managers, namely the Vice Chancellor and the Deputy Vice Chancellor, appointed at the beginning of 2002 and 2003 respectively, have placed a new emphasis on research in accordance with the new higher education policies. The post of Deputy Vice Chancellor (Academic) is a new one, focusing specifically on research development within the university, and is occupied by the first black and female senior manager to be appointed at UPE. Over recent years, the university has become infused with a spirit of managerialism, but not necessarily entrepreneurialism (see distinction drawn between these two terms in chapter one). It is this feature that distinguishes UPE from Rhodes, the other HWU in this study, which has maintained its collegial ethos and has opted for the entrepreneurial model in its response to the global and local changes. In these chapters, four to six, I present case studies of the individual institutions. Comparisons and contrasts between the universities are discussed in chapters seven to eleven.
4.2 RESEARCH CULTURE
In chapter one I explained that I used the term research culture to refer to the institution’s orientation towards research and to indicate what value is placed on research. The participants at UPE were unanimous in their view that the university did not have a strong research culture. At a group interview attended by four heads of departments and two head librarians, prior to the installation of the new senior managers noted above, one participant claimed that “research was not valued by top management and leadership at UPE,” and that it has never been an item on the executive management’s agenda (Group meeting, March 2002; see also I: DoR).29 Prior to 1999, the post of Director of Research did not even exist at UPE (I: Murray). This claim can be attributed to several factors, not least of which is the history of the institution. As noted in chapter one, the HWU-As established in the 1960s were teaching universities mainly, designed to develop an Afrikaner elite to assume key political and professional positions.
Over the years, there has been a proliferation of master’s degree programmes through coursework, resulting in a limited emphasis on research (I: Murray). Since the emphasis has been on teaching mainly, several lecturers were appointed without PhDs, a few even without master’s degrees (I: Piet). Hence, in some departments there is little expertise for the supervision of master’s or PhD students (I: students). The Director of Research estimated that about 15 % of academics were not conducting any research nor had they published any papers (I: DoR). In the past, promotions had not been based on research output as they are at present (I: Murray). Since 1994, the new policies have linked funding formulae to research output (see chapter two). According to the Director of Research, 3.2 million rands were allocated to research and related activities in 2003; this did not include capital expenses (I: Murray).
UPE did not have a staff orientation or mentoring programme to support new or emerging researchers (I: Charmaine; Murray). Xolile, a young academic, posited that a mentoring programme to support young and new researchers would be most useful:
Certainly, I think we could use something like that (support programme) which would be a helping hand for up and coming postgraduate students, incoming black staff, as well as some staff that have been here because certainly if you look across the board to black staff within this faculty, we are very few. I mean you could probably count us on one hand and one is not really aware of any kind of programme or incentive that is assisting and helping those individuals that are there.
Rita, senior librarian, believed that the lack of an “information culture” affected the research culture at UPE. She claimed that it was the responsibility of academics to go beyond giving a limited list of required readings to their students but rather to encourage students to seek out information more widely. She also pointed out that many academics never visited the library at all: “There are about 5,000 staff working [at UPE]… not half of them… come in here. You see the same faces all the time” (I: Rita).
As an incentive to build the research culture, UPE publicizes the list of the Top 20 researchers annually. Points are allocated for research output based on nine output categories ranging from low quality outputs such as unrefereed reports to high output based on masters and doctoral graduates and subsidised articles (Communication, DoR, 2004). An unrefereed report = 1; a doctoral thesis and subsidized articles = 10. The lower quality categories are also capped so that researchers can only attain a maximum of 5 points per year for conference presentations even if they deliver 20 conferences papers in one year, whilst if they publish four refereed articles in a year, they can attain 40 points with no maximum applied in this category (Communication, DoR). Thus, there is a weighting to differentiate quality of output. The person who generates the most weighted points (average-per-year based on outputs for the preceding five years) is recognized as Number One on the Top 20 list (I: DoR).
The format for honouring the researcher on the list varies each year, but usually includes a presentation by the Director of Research to the Council, outlining who the top researchers are, what their field of research is, and the external funds they raise for their research activities. A dinner to honour researchers and their spouses was held in 2004. The top new researcher and top teachers were acknowledged as well at the function. (Communication, DoR). Goodall, a ‘Top 20’ researcher, expressed approval of this system of rewards because he found that many people, who had not been aware of his research previously, now approached him about it (I: Goodall). In this sense, it has brought him added prestige and recognition.
Several staff members believed that the new management would be committed to placing greater and significant emphasis on research at UPE (I: Verster; William; Xolile). According to Xolile, the new Vice Chancellor and Deputy Vice Chancellor had stressed the need for increased research output in meetings with his department:
They (the Vice Chancellor and the Deputy Vice Chancellor) are trying to really engender a culture of research in the institution so that we can actually attract postgraduates from outside… because… the university needs to have a cross-pollination of ideas. As much as we can grow our own students in the postgraduate level, it benefits the university even more if we can have students that we can attract from elsewhere.
Like a few others, Xolile, believed in these promises made by senior management: “Personally, I am optimistic with the two, the Vice Chancellor and the Deputy Vice Chancellor, that they are definitely interested in research.”
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