Presentation of a series of papers on the Structure, Culture and Agency research project at the annual Heltasa Conference, UFS, November 2014.

1. Interplay of Structure, Culture and
Agency: A study on professional
development in higher education in
South Africa – what can we learn about
context, and does it matter?
HELTASA
CONFERENCE
Free State
University
19 – 21 November
2014

2. Full team (2011-2013)
Rhodes University Chrissie Boughey, Lynn Quin, Jo Voster
University of the Western Cape Vivienne Bozalek, Wendy McMillan
Stellenbosch University Brenda Leibowitz, Nicoline Herman, Jean
Farmer, Susan van Schalkwyk, Julia Blitz
Cape University of Technology Chris Winberg, James Garraway
University of Cape Town Jeff Jawitz, June Pym, Kevin Williams, Teresa
Peres
Durban University of Technology Gita Mistri,
University of Venda Clever Ndebele
University of Fort Hare Vuyisile Nkonki
The National Research
Foundation provided funding
for the project titled
“Context, structure and
agency”
(reference
ESA20100729000013945)

3. Research setting:
South African higher
education
Disadvantaged Comprehensive

4. Key Research Questions
1. How does ‘context’ influence participation in professional
development wrt the teaching role?
2. How does the interplay of structure, culture and agency
feature within and across these settings?
3. What can we learn in order to enhance the roles of
teaching and learning centres and strategies?
4. What are appropriate research
methods to research professional
development in South Africa?

5. Key Assumptions for Operations
Embedded Case Study Design
Multiple sites across range of institutional types
Focus on macro, meso and micro levels
Reflection on practice as AD Practitioners
Collaborative research

6. Research Design
• National Policy Environment
• Analysis of intelligibilia per institution (p.i.)
• Reflective reports by AD Directors p. i.
• Questionnaire p.i. (736 cleaned replies)
• Interviews:
– 4 senior management p.i.
– 10 – 16 academics p.i.
• Reflections on research process (x 2)
• Leading to 8 institutional case reports

7. Themes for this panel
A research-led and teaching-committed university
Lynn Quin and Jo Vorster (Rhodes University)
UOTs since the mergers
Gita Mistri (DUT)
Professional development in rural universities
Clever Ndebele and Vuyisile Nkonki (UniVen and UFH)
Duality of institutions
James Garraway and Chris Winberg (Cape Peninsula University of Technology)
Implications for research on professional development and
recommendations for professional development
Vivienne Bozalek and Wendy MacMillan (University of the Western Cape)

8. Balancing act
Research
and
Teaching &
learning
Lynn Quinn and Jo Vorster
Rhodes University

9. Rhodes context
•Small, historically white, research-intensive, English
medium (not merged)
•Good UG & PG pass & graduation rates
•Relatively good academic staff research outputs
•Despite being a ‘research intensive’ university, it is
an enabling environment for the development of
academic staff as teachers
–97% of respondents indicated a high interest in teaching
–79% have attended professional learning for teaching.
–83% Rhodes provides formal recognition for engagement in
professional learning
–82% Rhodes provides resources for engagement in professional
learning
WHY?

10. Enabling items in the cultural system
Teaching
highly valued
by most staff
(historically)
“there is a discourse in the institution that values good teaching”
“there’s a standard of excellence in teaching and for the most part our
academic staff have a passion for excellence in teaching”
“I’m also very fortunate because in my department I feel that the majority
of us are really committed to excellence in teaching and that really helps
and it’s very motivating to be part of that kind of team”
Passion for
teaching and
students’
learning
“cultivation of highly educated graduates” (VC)
“I want to be a good teacher because I love it. I love it when I see the
students suddenly realize how something fits together and how, you
know, the penny sort of drops, to speak. I would imagine that a lot of
academics are motivated by that … face to face with the students rather
than the recognition”
There’s a commitment to excellence in teaching and that commitment is
carried through into a willingness to engage with new methods, new
ways of doing things … try this, try that and just that commitment to
changing things if the students need it
Intrinsic
motivation for
staff
development
I did a programme because I love teaching, quite frankly. Teaching is
what I really enjoy doing and that presses all my buttons
I just thought I wasn’t confident enough, you know, because I thought I
needed some support and the only way to gain that support was to link
up with people who could support me through readings, ja, through
discussions and that’s where CHERTL became just the right place to be

11. Enabling items in the cultural system
Challenging traditional
views; questioning
taken for granted
beliefs about T & L
“teaching is about creating spaces of freedom for
students and for teachers to learn and grow and
transform at many levels, personal, social and
political together”
“So I don’t like teaching a student who memorises
something. But I want them to understand it, so I like
them to grasp and understand the applicability of
what they’ve learnt either with me or getting
assistance from their their peers. That’s my strong
belief”.
“I think the students all learn in a different way …
they need to put together their own, construct their
own picture of what they are learning and make it fit
in with what they already know. And of course,
everybody already knows different things,
everybody’s going to create or construct something
slightly different and slot it into what they already
know …”
Shifts in way ‘good’
teaching understood
good teaching is regarded as enabling students “to
both gain knowledge and contribute to knowledge
generation” (SM).

12. Enabling items in the cultural system
More nuanced
understandings of
diversity
“the ultimate test … of the transformation of a
university like Rhodes – or any university for that
matter – is the extent to which we have engaged
with profound epistemological and ontological
issues, teaching and learning issues and
curriculum issues” (SM)
Recognition that
disciplinary
qualifications not
sufficient
I’m not sure you can necessarily teach simply
because you have a PhD. I’m a very strong
proponent of this programme
I do think that there is a funny assumption that just
because you have disciplinary knowledge you can
automatically pass that on in an effective way
through a kind of teaching structure. So I do think
it is appropriate to give opportunities for lecturers
to understand curriculum design, pedagogical
approaches, issues of assessment, etcetera,
etcetera. I think it is a very valid, valuable tool

13. Enabling structures
Policies and probation
and promotion
requirements (levers)
… our induction, our expectations …that we put on
academics to equip themselves with respect to curriculum,
learning and teaching and so on all signal how seriously
we take learning and teaching.
“teaching is a very important part of, it’s one of those pillars
of the promotion process”
Well resourced, stable
credible T & L Centre
And then we provide the mechanisms and processes by
which we support and induct them into those activities
CHERTL supports and nurture this very well at Rhodes
with the vast experience of their staff in various aspects of
professional engagement. The entire administrative set up
here supports this too!
I think we are privileged at Rhodes, that there are quite a
few opportunities for development
AD staff in academic
posts
Roles/ Dean T & L
Overt and explicit
support from senior
leadership
Strong element of support for CHERTL from management
and leadership

14. Exploring
ACADEMIC &
MISSION DRIFT
from within the DUT
Gita Mistri

15. structure
In terms of the transformation agenda of the country, I am not sure if
everything about that restructuring was actually thought through. We became
universities; everybody was suddenly called a
university. However, which meant that we got measured and funded
similarly and not differentially. And if you’re going to take an institution like
ours and say we have to compete for this small pot of
gold with universities like UCT and Stellenbosch and so on, then
it becomes very difficult for me to say we were not impacted by that
restructuring, because the restructuring didn’t drill down
into what kind of funding and resource allocation mechanisms you will use;
what will be the performance indicators that you will use in order to
measure the various institutions achievements
towards the national goals. (SM@)

16. culture
We’re going, but we’re going slowly, because...suddenly we were called a
university, [and] there’s supposed to be a shift in the
way that you do things. We walk into an environment, those
of us who came from outside, where a number of people were telling us
that they were never even allowed to go to conferences and they were
teachers. No one expected them to write, no one
expected them to play the academic game
….some of them are near retirement, …and you say to them, “You
need to actually start publishing …. (SM2)

17. culture
The university has done a lot in terms of giving us this
platform to re-curriculate. It’s given us almost a blank
sheet and said go and re-design your curriculum … to
what you think and together with other
stakeholders what you think is going to make this a
better quality student exiting our system. (LL2)

18. agency
Look, it’s hard to say the environment is conducive,
but I think we have the attitude to make it
conducive, we look beyond the potholes (LL4).
It’s a recognition of things [that] need to change
and there must be a better way of doing things
(LL7).

19. Political lobbying  academic and mission drifterosion of the
differentiating boundaries
Articulation
???????????????????????????????????????????
Reverse - Transfer
Reverse lobbyingbusiness and industry re-establishment of the
technikon type institution 

20. Rurality and the Professional
Development of University
Teachers
Clever Ndebele (UniVen)
and
Vuyisile Nkonki (UFS)

21. The concept of rurality
• associated with remoteness with a set of
characteristics such as greater distances, low
socio-economic status, high proportion of
indigenous people, poor access to services, and
smaller populations.
• In SA, the notion of rural is closely associated with
histories and structures that have created conditions
and circumstances of ‘oppression’, ‘deprivation’,
‘disadvantage’ and ‘deficit
• Often, rural is formulated in comparison to the
urban with strong assumptions of difference and
deficit underpinning this binary (Masinire, Maringe
and Nkambule 2014)

22. The concept of rurality......
However, a contrasting view looks at the generative
and transformative nature of rurality in relation to the
effectiveness of intervention programmes (Balfour, de
Lange, and Khau, 2012)
Rurality as context suggests that one of the defining
characteristics of rurality is its intensity. For example,
even though there is poverty in urban context, the fact
that there is better support and infrastructure and a
better chance of obtaining assistance (in the form of
social services), such support often is either absent or
inaccessible in rural areas, owing to distance, poor
transportation, and neglect (Balfour, Mitchell, &
Moletsane 2008).

23. The intersection between rurality and
professional development
… there are many barriers that make the
process of engaging in professional development
difficult: long distances, lack of economic
resources, and heavy workloads that require a lot
of time and energy both inside and outside of
school (Gallo, J.R.,2013).

24. Key constraints to the uptake of
professional development
senior management cited large class teaching as major
constraint to lecturers finding time to engage in
professional development opportunities. The quote below
illustrates how rurality bears on the uptake of PD
opportunities in a rural campus:
“But if you have very few people doing what so many
people should be doing, chances are that something has
to give. Quality might suffer, in fact, because they
wouldn't take advantage of those staff development
opportunities. I mean, we have lots of seminars here, and
you see that members of staff really don't show up. You
have to be dealing with students (and sometimes people
coming from town), where are the colleagues?”

25. Key constraints...
Constraining conditions identified by lecturers were time,
inadequate infrastructure, lack of orientation prior to
assumption of duty, huge workloads, large classes and
lack of requisite resources. (lack of resources to hire more
staff in the concept of rurality?). The quotes below
buttress the above sentiments:
“Low attraction of adequate qualified staff due to living
conditions, hence putting too much workload on the
available staff. As a result available staff are at times
unable to pursue professional development opportunities
if is there are no replacements” ( MNG2)

26. Key constraints...
“Currently within the university we do have the problem that
all the positions are not quite filled, and another concern
might be that there might be financial constraints, you know to
get everything going at the moment” (SM-2)
“Number two is the lack of senior degrees among the majority
of our staff members as, also I was indicating to you, we are
one of the faculties in this university with a low percentage of
people or lecturers with doctorate degrees and that has a
knock-on effect in many areas “(SM-4).
“In fact, that’s probably at the bottom of it all because, when
we say that it’s difficult to obtain the proper numbers of staff,
it’s because of the financial constraints that the university has”
(SM-5).

27. Rurality on policy and subsidy for staff
development
“Rural based universities have a historical constraint of
resource challenges, this has partly influenced policy on
staff development for part time and auxiliary staff not
always catered for in some development opportunities.
The idea of having staff to pay for their own staff
development is not appealing to staff.”
Rurality and the CPD of discipline-specific
competencies
“Long distance from industry inhibited collaboration,
access with legal firms for professional development”.

28. Key enablers
• Management support especially from the DVC
academic
• Deliberate identification of courses/formal
qualifications on teaching in higher education
and sending staff members to enrol for these
• Funding readily available for staff development
from the staff development and training section
in the Human Resources Department and the
Academic Development Centres.

29. Key enablers...
The structures that have been put in place; School Based
Teaching and Learning Committees and the Senate Teaching
and Learning Committee
Technology as an enabler helps to mitigate some of the
challenges imposed by rurality as discerned in the quote below:
“If we had enough resources, like video conferencing and a lot
of those things were working fairly well, I think we could
eliminate what I am going to say, which is the time, because
having to drive to Town A, I always feel it’s a waste of my time
and I think I’m very pleased it’s this year, because only
yesterday I was counting on my way to Town C, I was saying,
you know, we’ve been so blessed this year, but it takes us
time sometimes to recognize when a bad thing has been lifted
from us” ( SM-6)

30. Implications
• Rurality presents both challenges and opportunities
for PD
• The uptake of developmental opportunities is
militated against by some facets of rurality in a cyclic
way.
• There is need for professional development of
managers and academic developers on ways of
mitigating the challenges imposed by rurality.
• Reconsideration of theoretical frames and
pragmatic issues when planning for PD interventions
• Institutional policies and strategies on PD need to
bargain for, frame, and focus on rurality as it affects
PD of lecturers.

31. DUALITY OF INSTITUTIONS
James Garraway and Chris Winberg
(Cape Peninsula University of
Technology)

32. Enterprise versus student
development
The first interesting tension emerging from the data is that
of the essential duality of universities as institutions.
Following the now well-known work of Burton Clarke
(1983) universities function both as enterprises with their
managerial and administrative functions and priorities as
well as organisations concerned with student learning and
development.

33. Enterprise versus student
development
In terms of the Burton-Clarke duality, senior
management views good teaching as equating to
throughput/pass rates whereas staff understand it
more in terms of their own and students learning
experiences

34. Our success rate, our
pass rates have
actually been at a fairly
good standard if I may
say so, which means
… that approach was
yielding some results
… I just find when I have a
new idea and I sit down and I
start … you know …
hammering it out on the
computer I find it so inspiring
… and I often find that the
students enjoy being taught
in a different way to the
regular chalk and talk thing.
So that has been a virtuous
cycle
you ought to be able to make
a difference … you shouldn’t
going through the motions of
teaching and what I mean by
making a difference would be
contributing to the
development of people,
peoples’ minds and skills in a
meaningful kind of way
I … think that I’m as much a
learner as I am a teacher
because
I learn from the students
every day.
the DHET asked us to set
us , to stretch ourselves
more and set ourselves
more challenging targets …
we had 78…79%
throughput
What counts as
‘good’ teaching:
Enterprise
Vs teaching as
Development from
managers and staff

35. Recommendations
• teaching needs to be uplifted nationally
• more and improved professional development
opportunities
• teaching conditions need further investigation
• history, geography and resources impact teaching
e.g. high turnover rural HEIs
• casualisation militates against investment in teaching
• infrastructure, leadership and admin have impact
• taking teaching forward nationally
• binary between research and teaching addressed
• academics learn from peers – needs
acknowledgement and action

36. Any thoughts regarding
recommendations?

37. Future Plans
Colloquium:
Professional Development with Regard to the
Teaching Role in Higher Education
27 July 2015
Cape Town
- please contact us if you would be interested in
presenting or attending
http://interplayofstructure.blogspot.com
Book on project
Journal special issue on theme

38. Papers associated with the project
Leibowitz, B. and Bozalek, V. 2014. Access to higher education in South Africa: A social realist account. Widening
Participation and Lifelong Learning. 16 (1), pp 91 - 109. http://wpll-journal.metapress.com/link.asp?id=X7243U561274
Leibowitz, B., Ndebele, C. and Winberg, C. 2013. The role of academic identity in collaborative research. Studies in
Higher Education. DOI:10.1080/03075079.2013.801424 (3 June 2013)
Leibowitz, B., van Schalkwyk, S., Ruiters, J., Farmer, J. and Adendorff, H. (2012) “It’s been a wonderful life”: Accounts of
the interplay between structure and agency by “good” university teachers. Higher Education 63 353 – 365.
Jawitz, J., Williams, K., Pym, J. and Cox, G. 2013. Why we do what we do: Interrogating our academic staff development
practice 76. In: T. Tisani and M. Madiba (Eds) Proceedings of the Higher Education Learning and Teaching Association of
Southern Africa (HELTASA) 2012 Conference.ISBN: 978-0-620-55540-1 Publication date: April 2013.
MacMillan, W. (on-line, HERD) ‘They have different information about what is going on’: Emotion in the transition to
university. CHER-2012-1069.R2
Ndebele, C., (2014). Deconstructing the Narratives of Educational Developers on the Enabling and Constraining
Conditions in Their Growth; Development and Roles as Educational Staff Development Facilitators at a South African
University. International Journal of Education Science, 6(1), pp.103–115.
Quinn, L. and Vorster, J. (2014). Isn’t it time to start thinking about ‘developing’ academic developers in a more
systematic way? International Journal for Academic Development. DOI: 10.1080/1360144X.2013.879719
Ndebele, C. (2014). Approach towards the professional development of academics as espoused in institutional policy
documents at a South African university. J Soc Sci, 38(3): 255-269
Leibowitz, B., Bozalek, V., Winberg, C. and van Schalkwyk, S. (2014) Institutional Context Matters: the professional
development of academics as teachers in South African Higher Education. Higher Education, DOI: 10.1007/s10734-014-
9777-2
Leibowitz, B. (2014) Conducive Environments for the Promotion of Quality Teaching in Higher Education in South Africa.
CRISTAL. 2 (1) 49-73 DOI: 10.14426/cristal.v2i1.27