The thesis documents the construction of a coherent conceptual and practical framework in
which to locate the quest to establish community engagement as a legitimate, feasible and
viable undertaking in higher education alongside its more established and accepted
counterparts of teaching and research, with particular focus on the University of Zululand
(UNIZULU) â a rural-based comprehensive university with an urban footprint.
The thesis begins with a brief outline of the national context of community engagement
before moving on to a more specific description of the context and recent history of
UNIZULU. Certain key concepts are then clarified. A statement of the research concern and
objectives of the study is followed by an account of the theoretical framework and research
perspective underpinning the thesis, and a description of the methodology employed in the
research. Ethical considerations are noted. There then follows a brief indication of the scope
and intention of each of the papers, and the rationale behind the order in which they appear
in the thesis. This brief introductory section concludes with speculation on what the
significance of this study might be.
Paper 1, Notions of âcommunity engagementâ appropriate to a Community-University
Partnership Programme (CUPP) in a South African rural-based comprehensive university â
Siyanibona!, seeks to tease out contested understandings of the notions of âidentityâ,
âcommunityâ and âengagementâ. In so doing it explores three particular ideas, taken up in later
papers, namely: the notion of ârelationships of fateâ needing to transform into âpartnerships of
choiceâ; the link between the circumstances of a particular universityâs birth, and its
acceptance or otherwise of its responsibility to its locale; and the need for all stakeholders in
the community-university engagement endeavour to know more about each other at a level
deeper than simply the institutional or organisational.
Paper 2, From pillars to people: Reconceptualising the integration of teaching, research and
community engagement in higher education, addresses the struggle community engagement
has faced in achieving par with higher educationâs other core activities of teaching-andlearning
and research in a way which chooses not to look at teaching, research and
community engagement as activities or objects, but from the perspective of the individual
stakeholders (staff, students and community members) engaged in those activities. The
exploration of this idea picks up on the distinction between ârelationships of fateâ and
âpartnerships of choiceâ first articulated in Paper I and expands the concept of âengagementâ
to encompass the relationships between staff and students (not just those between the
university and community members), and discusses ways in which staff, students and
communities might more usefully interact with each other.
Paper 3, SMMEs and higher education: Possibilities for partnership? homes in on a particular
sector of the business community, to ascertain the extent to which the sector might be able
to partner with the University to their mutual benefit. Using data from a questionnaire and
interviews the study reveals that opportunities for work experience for students in micro and
survivalist enterprises are limited but that the University could be doing more to âreach outâ to
its communities by making them aware of who the university is, what it can offer, how it can
assist, and perhaps most importantly, how it can be accessed.
Paper 4, ProAct: An integrated model of action research and project management for
capacitating universities and their communities in the co-production of useful knowledge, tells
the story of the evolution of a hybrid model of action research and project management
(ProAct) which takes account of the need for research in the university-community context to
be accomplished democratically, but within specific parameters of time and other resources
by grafting selected project management tools onto the basic action research cycle. The
model gives practical and concrete form to the conceptual and theoretical constructs of other
researchers who have considered the linking of action research and project management.
Paper 5, A comprehensive university and its local communities: Establishing a framework for
engagement, addresses the overarching question of how to establish a framework for
engagement between a university and its communities. The paper employs the well-used
âbuilding constructionâ metaphor, identifying the management and governance building blocks
(including institutional self-identity, unequivocal support from institutional executive
leadership, plans, policies, structures, and funding), and the âcementâ for holding the
framework together (including familiarity with communities and knowing how to interact with
them, changing mindsets and building capacity). The paper offers the opinion that the
necessary foundation for the edifice is the institutional belief that engaging with communities
is actually an integral and enhancing enabler of the higher education learning experience, not
something which one is empowered to do after having been prepared exclusively in the
lecture hall. The paper avers that if an institution does not come close to holding the view
that the purpose of higher education is to provide something useful to society, starting with
the communities that surround them, community engagement will always struggle to be
accepted by the academy.
In considering the significance of this whole study the thesis identifies the key ârealisationsâ
which have given food for thought and which other researchers might find worthwhile
exploring further too. These are: the significance of how institutional and community identities
are established, by choice, fate or fiat; re-thinking the concept of âengagementâ to focus not
on the activities per se of teaching, research and community engagement but on all of the
stakeholders working as willing partners; the need for institutions and communities to
embrace the belief that university-community interaction is one of the purposes of higher
education, and the belief that community engagement is a vehicle for staff, student,
curriculum and institutional development.
In concluding, the thesis additionally notes the significance to the author himself of having
taken this research journey. As a consequence he feels he is in a better position to promote
a more integrated model of teaching, research and community engagement to his university,
community colleagues, students, and community engagement peers in other universities.
However, the author indicates that in furthering the cause of community engagement in
higher education he will need to explore alternative paradigms, notably complexity science,
and systemic action research.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:ufs/oai:etd.uovs.ac.za:etd-08042014-150028 |
| Date | 04 August 2014 |
| Creators | Boughey, John Desmond |
| Contributors | Prof MA Erasmus |
| Publisher | University of the Free State |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | en-uk |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.uovs.ac.za//theses/available/etd-08042014-150028/restricted/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to University Free State or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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