Community Engagement will always stay one of the three missions for an institution of higher education, after all what is a university without its community. But at CUT the techniques, work ways, and thinking models are changing.
A set of workshops will be hosted by Community Engagement - which at CUT forms part of Research and Innovation - to inform and guide the institution to these new work ways and one such workshop was recently hosted. The theme of the workshop was “Community-Focused teaching and researching in higher education: new horizons” and the facilitator Dr John Boughey.
Dr Boughey, who is the Director of Academic Development at the University of Zululand, focuses his energy on how academic staff can integrate their teaching, research and community engagement to draw forth the most benefit to students, staff and the community.
Using the technique of ‘rich picturing’, this interactive workshop began by looking at the challenges and opportunities for universities in making their own and their students’ university experience more learning-centered, research-informed and community-focused.
Participants compared their experiences with a check-list of institutional and individual indicators of the extent to which the inclusion of ‘community’ is both desirable and feasible.
The workshop concluded with a re-conceptualisation of the traditional three-silo model of Teaching, Research and Community Engagement.
Pictured is Dr Boughey engaging with workshop delegates during their session.