Internationale Kulturwissenschaften International Cultural Studies Etudes culturelles internationales
		CULTURAL  COLLABORATORY

"Transformation" is a concept that has come into common currency especially in the past five years. The need and desire to change, alter, create anew is not surprising given the general state of upheaval presently pertaining in countries all over the world. Feeding this activity is perhaps also a certain degree of "millennium fever", not so very unlike the restlessness prevailing at the end of the 19th century. While some may desire something new and welcome transformation as a challenge, others feel anxious in the face of so much uncertainty and rapid change and may find a certain security in clinging to the known and traditional, at the same time seeing these old values inexorably eroded on an almost daily basis. Transformation carries within it, the idea of a radical change of state of being, a metamorphosis, and, at present, in many instances, the old way of doing and viewing things has so-to-say been spun into a cocoon -something new is coming into being that is, as yet, invisible and what will finally emerge, after so much effort, is uncertain - will it emerge in the brilliant colours and patterns of a butterfly poised for flight or shall we be left with a drab grey moth?

Nowhere has the idea of transformation been bandied around and come to be used to such an inflationary extent as in tertiary educational institutions. As societal institutions, universities have not been left untouched by socio-political, as well as economic changes impacting on the societies they are supposed to serve. The impact of the fall of the Berlin Wall and the demise of the former Soviet Union reverberated throughout Central and Eastern Europe and beyond - from the Baltic to the Urals, not to mention the resultant upheavals as far away as Africa and Asia and elsewhere in the world. In South Africa, for example, the first democratic elections in 1994 ushered in a new era, too. Necessitating and driving the restructuring process all over the world have been economic factors, with the so-called "emerging economies" being hardest hit. Change is, therefore, not only something to be striven for merely to create new and improved form and way of doing things - many transformations have become essential as a result of severe financial pressures.

In taking my example from the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, with special reference to the Arts Faculty, the home of Cultural Studies, I am struck by the similarity of the problems, proposed solutions and also misgivings, of other tertiary institutions in countries as diverse as Latvia, Poland, Russia and Turkey, quite apart from similar institutions in Northern and Western Europe and elsewhere in the world. However, many of the pressures brought to bear on tertiary institutions are particularly exacerbated in the "emerging economies" by the less than favourable economic situation, leading to the necessity of having to effect change, hopefully for the better, within a new socio-political order, constrained by an acute shortage of funding. Creativity and idealism are perhaps the mainstay and last refuge of the committed academic, but an absence of funding is the ultimate stumbling block impeding progress.

The discussions currently taking place at the University of the Witwatersrand have now reached a crucial stage with a recent special newsletter being sent to the staff of the University and containing the report of a Faculty Restructuring Task Group. One must also bar in mind that some changes related to transformation have been the subject of legislation in South Africa and the University has to take cognisance of this and incorporate these changes into any restructuring process. I refer, for example, to The Higher Education Act of 1977, which was preceded by the Green Paper on Higher Education Transformation (1996) and labour legislation such as the Employment Equity Act, which is of particular relevance as regards the employment of previously disadvantaged groups, women and the disabled. The Higher Education Act also creates tension in the need to redress past discrimination in the student body, at the same time to engage in the pursuit of excellence and to promote the "full realization

of the potential of every student and employee". In his publication to the staff, the Vice-Chancellor noted that the present structures, both academic and administrative, had remained essentially unchanged during the past 20 years and that the institutional, national and global pressures for curriculum renewal would have to be faced "in a context of financial stringency". In short, the recommendations of the Faculty Restructuring Group centre on the following: a reduction in the number of faculties, the formation of larger departments or schools and executive deans as opposed to the academic status of deans at present.

How these restructuring recommendations have been received by the Arts Faculty is of particular relevance for the future of all academic activities related to the broad field of Cultural Studies. One of the chief fears expressed in a circular from the Dean of the Arts Faculty, reporting on the deliberations of the Arts Faculty Executive, to staff in the Faculty, is the discrepancy between wishing to run the University as a business and (i.e. restructuring primarily as a cost-cutting exercise) and academic desirability. In, for example, merging the Commerce and Law faculties (both viewed as profitable faculties in terms of income generated from student fees), if there is no commitment to the desirability of the Humanities and an acceptance of their relative "expensiveness", the Arts Faculty could be made more vulnerable to rationalisation. Indeed, highlighted in the Vice-Chancellors report, as the Dean remarks, is the singling out of so-called "human resource implications" that would have to be identified by a "technical working group", prior to any academic group being required to "generate possible models of new academic entities". The danger of this, the Dean further states, could be that "academic considerations and priorities will be sidelined". The Faculty of Arts, moreover, wishes to be renamed the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences to more accurately reflect the wide range of its activities. As the Dean cogently states: "Restructuring can not be simply a matter of money; it needs to be informed by an intellectual debate that recognizes, amongst other things, the enduring importance of the humanities and social sciences".

A matter of importance all over the world, and particularly in the emerging economies, is the demand for a correlation between academic study and the world of work. This type of vocational training has not traditionally been offered by universities, nor has it been envisaged by the Arts. However, for example, the argument that foreign language acquisition should be offered to the exclusion of literary studies, in order to better fit students for the job market, is flawed. Indeed, given the present situation, which is likely to intensify in the future, where structural unemployment is fast becoming a fact of life, and graduates can no longer expect to stay in the same type of employment during their entire working life, but will be increasingly likely to experience several career changes, and even become self-employed, flexibility would surely seem to be the life-skill of the most use in the future. Flexibility is, of course, precisely what emanates from Cultural Studies in the broadest sense, where students learn to analyze and evaluate material, present findings in a coherent form, access information, become tolerant of difference, as well as become creative thinkers in the pursuit of solutions to problems. In short, they learn how to communicate effectively. Is this perhaps not the best guarantee for the success of transformation at the tertiary educational institutions of the future? Certain basic knowledge does not change and this knowledge should continue to be imparted by universities, but in sacrificing the human face of knowledge by treating the life-skills communicated by the Arts as dispensible luxuries, would seem to be shortsighted. When the current debates on transformation reach implementation and we see what we will have to operate with in the future, let us ensure that we have a vital and colourful butterfly, ready for flight and not a cost-cutting grey moth heading for destruction around the nearest light bulb.

		Internationale Kulturwissenschaften International Cultural Studies Etudes culturelles internationales
		CULTURAL  COLLABORATORY