Racism, sexism, lack of transparency and “exclusion organised around … whiteness” — these are the experiences of staff employed at the University of Witwatersrand.
A bellwether report initiated by the university last year to examine perceptions of transformation among staff members makes these revelations. The most pervasive perception is the “strong sense that the institutional culture [is] being held back by a group of ‘old guard’ in powerful positions”.
The report, titled This Is Where I Want to Belong, was commissioned by Wendy Orr, the director of the Transformation and Employment Equity Office under the former chancellor Norma Reid-Birley.
“It is not easy listening to all [these outcomes], but we wanted to name them so that we can start addressing them,” Orr told the Mail & Guardian.
The research was managed by the Institute for Intercultural and Diversity Studies of Southern Africa at the University of Cape Town (UCT) and conducted by an associated organisation of this institute called Simply Said and Done.
“I feel that you cannot audit yourself,” said Orr about getting UCT to do the research. “UCT conducted a similar report in 1999 that surveyed their students’ experiences and we were impressed by their work.”
The research was implemented, says the report, to “deepen the university’s insight into staff perceptions and experiences of their working environment”.
The research, which began in October last year, consisted of 20 workshops and five individual interviews. These workshops operated on a voluntary basis — staff placed themselves in one of 24 groups, divided into academic or support staff grades, faculties, race, gender, nationality and disability.
“In spite of restructuring, and many documents and policies supporting transformation … Wits is still perceived as reflecting the traditional values of a white patriarchal institutional culture,” the report says.
The majority of staff in decision-making positions are white males —they make up 71% of professors at the university, compared to 9% black, 18% white female, and 1% black female. Overall female academic staff make up 43,8% of the total academic staff body and black academic staff make up 24,5%.
Many black and some white staff spoke about incidents of racism. “Whiteness” was perceived as a position of power, “with Africanisation as the shadow of whiteness”. Women spoke about sexism: “There is a sense of exclusion — the boys’ club to which you can never belong.”
Many participants commented on the lack of managerial capacity to deal with diversity among staff: “The university’s values have to be examined and a more people-orientated vision … accepted.”
Recruitment of new staff was perceived as being opaque because it did not always follow set criteria. Salary scales were unevenly applied, claimed some.
Speaking out about special needs is also problematic. “Physical access for people in wheelchairs is a perennial problem … But when they are insistent about their rights [they] are labelled troublemakers.”
Staff also complained that “English proficiency passes as a measure of intelligence or ability … The prevailing Eurocentrism also implicitly devalues Africa and Africans.”
Despite these problems, the report also reinforces the sense that the “majority [of staff members have] a deep commitment to Wits and [are] enthusiastic about participating in the institution’s transformation”.
In September the senior execu- tive council agreed on several interventions to address the concerns recounted in the report. These include a seminar series on equity and transformation; the implementation of a language policy that will require all staff and students to learn an Afri- can language; capacity-building programmes for staff; a “one campus, many cultures” campaign; and a “zero tolerance” approach to disrespect or other behaviour that does not conform to the Wits code of conduct.
Orr said that various faculties have been assigned responsibility for implementing these programmes next year, and the process will be monitored closely.
“The point now is to close the gap between policy and implementation,” new Wits vice-chancellor Loyiso Nongxa told the M&G.
He said the greatest challenge would be to change people’s attitudes: “It’s a personal issue changing attitudes … Setting targets is one thing, establishing a working system to achieve those is another thing.”
Yet, he said, “we are currently engaging with the university community. The feedback has generally been positive and the staff understand transformation in the broader sense.”