Seventeen applications for ad hominem promotions were approved at a meeting of the Senate on 2 June 2008 . These included fifteen promotions to the post of Associate Professor and two promotions to the post of Full Professor.

The group of recipients represented a wide cross-section of academic fields and included staff members from all six Faculties.

Health and Wellness Sciences promoted four staff members to the post of Associate Professor, namely Dr Johan Esterhuyse and Dr Sehaam Khan of Biomedical Sciences, Dr Tania Botha of Somatology and Dr Penelope Engel-Hills of.Radiography. Dean of Health and Wellness Sciences Dr Dhiro Gihwala, was awarded Full Professiorship.

In the Business Faculty, Dr Harry Ballard and Dr Ignatius Ferreira of Public Management and Dr Johann van der Merwe of Public Relations Management were promoted to Associate Professor. Full Professorship was awarded to Dr Simeon Davies, Head of the Department of Sports Management.

Dr Wesaal Khan of Biotechnology and Dr De Wet Schutte of Environmental and Occupational Studies were promoted to Associate Professor within the Faculty of Applied Sciences. Mr Bennet Alexander and Dr Shaun Pather were granted Associate Professorship within the Faculty of Informatics and Design.

The Faculty of Education promoted Dr Cornelis Vermeulen to Associate Professor. In the Faculty of Engineering, Dr Edward Snyders of Maritime Studies, Dr Cecilia Jacobs of Engineering: Teaching and Learning and Dr Rainer Haldenwang of Civil Engineering became Associate Professors.

Applications for ad hominem promotions were reviewed according to thorough procedures. All applications contained a CV, portfolio of evidence and motivational letter. Deans and senior researchers nominated by their Faculties gave each application a preliminary score based on the categories Teaching and Learning, Research and Leadership and Professional.

Two meetings of the Ad Hominem Promotions Committee were then held. At these meetings each preliminary score was presented and a second score was provided by a designated person on the Committee. Both scores were then discussed and used as the basis for achieving consensus on whether to recommend an applicant for promotion.

Oh behalf of the University, Deputy Vice-Chancellor Anthony Staak congratulates the new Associate Professors and Full Professors on their well-deserved promotions. According to Prof Staak,“They will have a major role to play in helping the institution achieve its vision of being at the heart of technology education and innovation in Africa .”

By Ilana Abratt, Marketing and Communication Department

Written by CPUT News
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With the latest tourism figures showing that the country had its best tourism season on record last year, it would seem that hosting the 2010 FIFA World Cup has been a boost for South Africa.

Now a major study, led by CPUT, analyzing the socio-economic impact of the event has drawn to a close. The research undertaken by Prof Kamilla Swart and her MTech and DTech students was celebrated at a function at the Granger Bay campus recently, where it was confirmed that the World Cup has undoubtedly shone a positive light on both Cape Town and South Africa.

Swart is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Business and heads the Centre for Tourism Research in Africa. She was the Project Manager of the massive undertaking, which saw over seven thousand surveys being conducted over the period of the World Cup, in partnership with the City of Cape Town and the Cape Higher Education Consortium.

Swart praised the hard work of the collaborators, including the City’s Carol Wright, and spoke of the sleepless nights, anxiety and fun that the huge project entailed.

She also spoke of the need for a critical understanding of event impacts on the city. Results indicate that Cape Town and the country were positively profiled, with latest tourism figures backing this up.

With tourism in many other countries on the decline owing to the troubled Euro-zone, Tourism Minister Marthinus van Schalkwyk announced in Parliament in April that South Africa recorded 3.3% more tourists than in 2010, when growth of 15.1% was achieved.

By Jan Weintrob

Written by CPUT News
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Daniela Gachago, an Associate Professor at the Centre for Innovative Educational Technology is thrilled to have secured a Fulbright scholarship to conduct research in the United States.

In her quest to both broaden and deepen her research and to promote innovation in teaching and learning at CPUT and beyond, Gachago will be based at Pennsylvania State University also known as PennState University. The focus of her research is to understand how innovation happens in institutions of higher learning.

“We are looking at how design thinking has been adopted, used, and adjusted for higher education across different institutions and contexts,” she says.

Gachago is particularly interested in how design thinking can support academic staff development. She is working with eLearning champions across different faculties. In the past, her research, displayed what she calls an ‘eLearning mindset’, which is characterised by a focus on learners’ needs, a desire to collaborate, a penchant for risk-taking and experimentation, and most importantly, a shared concern not to see problems as stumbling blocks but an opportunity to innovate.

“In the project proposal I submitted to Fulbright, I would like to explore whether and how one can promote this mindset in academic staff development…I am excited about the opportunity to spend some time in the US,” Gachago remarks.

The period has been postponed from August 2020 to January 2021. “Let’s hope we can travel by then. It’s difficult to imagine that this lockdown will be over at one point.”

She is going to continue working on her research on innovation and academic staff development by exploring how Pennsylvania State University supports the teaching and learning project, with a particular focus on the integration of technology in teaching and learning. “PennState has a huge network of instructional designers and I will interview and work with them.”

She explains that to apply for a Fulbright Scholarship one needs a number of things, namely, a great proposal, but also letters of support from your institution and two reference letters. “You also need a letter of support from a US institution stating that they will host you. Luckily I was already part of a project with a colleague from PennState University, Dr Laura Cruz, who works at the Schreyer Institute of Teaching Excellence.” Cruz agreed to host Gachago and helped with organising the invitation letter from her institution.

Gachago likes working with people across different institutions. She says that pushes her out of her comfort zone and expands her horizons.  However, she concedes that it’s not easy working without direct contacts, ‘but luckily online video conferencing tools and other online collaboration tools, such as Google Drive, have made it possible to work online across different contexts’.

She says: “This has kept us going throughout the COVID-19.”

Written by Aphiwe Boyce
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Dr Zayd Waghid (36), a senior lecturer in the Education Faculty, was recently promoted to the position of Associate Professor and became the youngest academic to bear the title in his faculty.

“My promotion to Associate Professor in less than seven years is a major turning point in my academic career. However, I don't think anybody should be too relaxed about things” said Waghid. “Thanks to the flexibility of my current position and support from my Head of Department, I've been able to significantly improve my research output, with seven publications in 2022 alone.”

Waghid began his career in higher education as a lecturer in 2015, transitioning from a career as a school teacher. “My 6.5 years of teaching experience helped prepare me for my current position,” he observed.

He added that despite the widespread protests that produced a lot of anxiety that year, he concentrated heavily on his teaching while still focusing on research.”

“After my first year of academia, I had a conversation with a professor and, when asked how many research outputs I produced, I said that I had mostly submitted approximately two papers to local journals,” recalled Waghid. “After that discussion I realised then that, although teaching has traditionally been the university's primary purpose, I wanted to find more efficient methods to boost my research output.”

He added that as he began to write more journal articles, book chapters, and his first co-authored book in 2016, he crafted a curriculum that would include a service-learning project. “This I believe was necessary in laying the foundation for me to focus on all three spheres in higher education, i.e. teaching, learning, research and innovation and community engagement.”

After receiving recognition for his research productivity, teaching excellence awards at the university level and registered a service-learning project he was promoted to the position of senior lecturer in 2018. “But I've always had this sense that I should not feel complacent” he said. “I collaborated on writing projects with people from various universities, both in South Africa and abroad and submitted applications for several National Research Foundation projects.”  

His latest entry into the Conversation Africa, an independent source of news and views from the academic and research community,where he further discusses research on his teaching can be viewed on https://theconversation.com/decolonising-education-in-south-africa-a-reflection-on-a-learning-teaching-approach-192190

His advice to young academics just beginning off in higher education: “Create a team of researchers to collaborate on journal publications, and put in time writing both group articles and single authored papers. Every morning except if you have an 8:00am class, start working on your research at 5:00am and don't stop until 10:00,” he continued. “Use this time wisely by focusing only on your research. Create an annual research plan and discuss it with your department head for approval. CPUT has a plethora of opportunities and use these wisely. Be selective about your research without overextending yourself. Do what makes you happy and the rest will follow.”

Written by Kwanele Butana
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Associate Professor in the Media Department, LJ (Nic) Theo, has been awarded a C3 rating by the National Research Foundation.

Theo works across many areas in media and communication studies with a main focus on the semiotic mechanism by which subjectivity and consciousness are reflected and represented in media and communication.

“I have always been interested in language and its application and in how representation in visual media reflects social norms. My focus on Applied Communication coalesced in a PhD on how formal psychiatric definitions and diagnostic criteria communicate meta-theoretical assumptions about how people live in the world and fuel media representations.

“Since then I have focused specifically on meaning-making in mass visual media and journalism, with a niche in film screenwriting theory. I really enjoy exploring minutiae and meta-theory and understanding paradigmatically how individual units of communication come together to generate meanings that in turn influence the discourses that constitute our social and personal worlds.”

The award-winning academic started at CPUT in 2008 in the Film Production programme as a part-time lecturer, before progressing to a full-time contract and becoming permanent in 2014 as Senior Lecturer and eventually being promoted ad hominem to Associate Professor in 2016.

Theo has won a few awards over the years and has celebrated many career highlights.

The awards include the CPUT Institutional Teaching Award (2015), a Heltasa National Teaching Excellence Award (2016) and a Gold award for Research from CPUT (2019).

The highlights include being a judge on the South African Film and Television Awards (SAFTAs) (2013-14), and a panellist and assessor on the Department of Higher Education and Training Creative Outputs Subpanel for Film and Television (2020-22).

“I currently serve as Chair of this panel (2023-25) and as a board member and ad hoc acting editor for the Journal for Transdisciplinary Research in Southern Africa (TD-SA). For the last few years, I have been a supervisory contributor to digital artifact development on the Heltasa Teaching Advancement at Universities (TAU) 3 and 4 programmes, which is great fun.

“My most rewarding career highlights, though, happen every year when I watch my students who have worked so hard walk across the stage at graduation.”

NRF ratings are allocated based on a researcher’s recent research outputs and impact as perceived by international peer reviewers. The rating of individuals is based primarily on the quality and impact of their research outputs over the past eight years, taking into consideration the evaluation made by local and international peers. It identifies researchers who count among the leaders in their fields of expertise and gives recognition to those who constantly produce high quality research outputs. Ratings are awarded in the following categories:

• A – Leading international researchers.
• B – Internationally acclaimed researchers.
• C – Established researchers.
• P – Prestigious Awards.
• Y – Promising young researchers

“I was seriously happy…a bit surprised since my research niche is not something that generally gets much recognition, but very pleased that I have been acknowledged as a contributor to scholarship,” said Theo about receiving the NRF rating.

In his free time, the academic has a range of interests.

“I don’t count myself as a designer or artist, but I make things for personal entertainment that many would not call ‘art’ but that entertain me. I like sculpture and enjoy whittling wood and making things out of found objects. I’m currently working on a minor project that I call ‘Poe-art-try’: small multi-material sculptural installations intended to be read as wordplay. I also collect antique books and cook.”

Written by Ilse Fredericks
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