Teaching Visit to UWC, 30 June-26 August 1999
George J. McCall
Adaptation was the constant theme of my teaching visit to the Department of Anthropology and Sociology at University of the Western Cape, as the projected teaching environment that had framed my proposal had seriously altered.
The national educational policy of de-emphasizing disciplinary majors in favor of creating interdisciplinary “programmes” more in tune with job demands of the transforming political economy had already encountered substantial difficulties at several South African universities. At UWC, the campus processes for identifying and organizing such programmes for initial implementation in AY 2000 had undergone successive shifts in direction and scope. The department, acting as convenor of at least three of these new programmes, had quite suddenly experienced massive faculty turnover and redeployment, most of which directly and unhappily affected my proposed activities.
My familiarity with the department and the campus, the indispensable aid of Acting Chairman Tony Humphreys and departmental assistant Glenville Wyngaard, and the inherent structural flexibility of Honours (post-graduate, pre-Masters) courses enabled reasonably successful adaptations to the resulting variety of difficulties.
That is to say, I did in fact develop and teach at UWC (during Third Term 1999) a new Anthropology/Sociology course on Conflict Mediation and Resolution at Honours level, with the additional aim of contributing a module along those lines to the planned undergraduate Crime and Social Control Programme.
After onset of UWC's AY 1999 but prior to my arrival there, the three most senior sociologists resigned, including the two (Jeffrey Lever and Jimmy Ellis) who had visited UMSL and helped construct our detailed plan of interdepartmental cooperation. Lever, as department chair and campus convenor of the Crime and Social Control programme, was to have hosted my visit. Ellis was to have served as my principal link to other campus units which I could explore teaching interests in conflict resolution and mediation.
Olijide Oleyede took over from Lever both of those key responsibilities as of 1 July and was keen to move forward with our interdepartmental linkages. Unfortunately, Oleyede had to return to England in late June for serious eye surgery and was not to return until late September.
Dirk Winterhalter, a well-seasoned lecturer in crime, deviance, and social control and an authority on local community conflicts arising from gang rivalries, also urgently took compassionate leave for third term. Sharyn Spicer, the remaining departmental representative in the Crime and Social Control programme, returned from overseas belatedly, well into my course calendar.
Elaine Salo and Diana Gibson were on study leave to finish dissertations, with significant overseas travel required.
Other personnel changes within the department did not directly affect my workplan but did perhaps contribute to an atmosphere of some apprehension and confusion.
In St. Louis, from January -June 1999, I did work to adapt syllabi and materials from my UMSL courses on mediation and conflict resolution (Sociology 268, The Sociology of Conflict; Sociology 422, Family and Interpersonal Conflict Resolution; Sociology 424, Conflict Management in Organizations; Sociology 426, Community and Regional Conflict Intervention; Sociology 430, Policy Mediation Processes) as well as from mediation and conflict resolution workshops I had previously delivered in South Africa over the past ten years. In this course development process I did communicate frequently with Drs. Lever and Ellis to enhance the appropriateness of the new syllabus and materials to the UWC context. Mr. Winterbach, tentatively targeted to participate in and eventually take over that course, was unable to join in the St. Louis-based efforts.
Prior to my on-schedule arrival at UWC on 30 June, I had been informed of the resignations of Lever and Ellis and of the medical leave of Oleyede, and of the fact that the meetings of the South African Sociological Association (SASA) were not in fact to be held in Johannesburg but rather at Saldanha Bay a few days later. Too late to alter my airline ticket to Johannesburg, I did go there as scheduled, with the effect that my course development efforts profited considerably from the time I was able to spend there conferring with influential mediators Hugo van der Merwe (Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation) and Chris Mbileni (Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration).
I returned to Bellville on 4 July, unhosted, but among departmental friends. Acting Chairman Humphreys had arranged for office facilities, even though the campus was on semester break. I did then attend the SASA meetings (held 6-9 July, on the campus of the South African Military Academy at Saldanha Bay) but, in view of the unhappy resignations of Lever and Ellis, did not deliver the planned presentation on our interdepartmental plan of cooperation.
Subsequently, I returned to the on-site portion of my course development efforts. Miss Spicer had been designated to replace Mr. Winterhalter in working with me to improve the course and to ready herself for taking on the future teaching of it. Because she was overseas, she was unable to assist me during this on-site phase of course development. I did, however, contact Cape Town representatives of several leading conflict resolution agencies, negotiated guest appearances by South African experts, and organized a good selection of readings to support a conventional 12-meeting syllabus. As many readings as possible were by South African authors, and the syllabus (Appendix A) did effectively integrate lecture-discussion, practical exercises, simulations, and guest appearances by agency representatives.
It developed, however, that an incorrect starting date for third term had been communicated to me, and the term was actually to start one week later than anticipated. Given my fixed departure date, this entailed a substantial reorganization of my syllabus (Appendix B). Polling the part-time Honours students about available dates, I juggled the planned-for contact hours into a workable set of six meetings, including one six-hour Saturday laboratory practical meeting (jointly with UMSL colleague Miranda Duncan, participating at her own expense).
The actual teaching of the course (27 July-25 August) proceeded rather smoothly, although I have still to conduct the grading of term papers back in St. Louis during October. All three available departmental Honours students took the course for credit, joined on an audit basis by another departmental post-graduate student and by a junior lecturer (Jennifer Parr) with a background in facilitation. Because Spicer had already missed much of the course, the department assigned Miss Parr to be the participating faculty member preparing to take over its future teaching. (In fact, Miss Parr was also assigned to grade current students' answers to the questions I have already contributed to their semester exams.)
I also prepared, in consultation with Miss Parr, a tentative outline for an eventual module on conflict resolution and mediation within the undergraduate Crime and Social Control Programme. Copies of those materials have been left for Oleyede and Winterhalter to consider upon their return to departmental affairs.
Because of the department's key personnel losses, two of my project's subsidiary goals—joint discussions with other units regarding their specialized instructional needs in the area of conflict mediation and resolution, and visiting other classes in the Crime and Social Control Programme to examine potential linkages with my own course—could not be substantially pursued.
The remaining subsidiary goal—substantial site visits to departmental research projects relevant to conflict mediation and resolution in order to consider whether and how the UMSL department might usefully contribute to the conduct of those projects—was attained within the limits set by personnel changes. Although Lever, Winterbach, and Ellis were no longer accessible, I did consult with Salo and Gibson about such linking with their ongoing research projects.
Adapting once again, I was able to substitute de novo an unanticipated subsidiary goal of meeting frequently with Salo and Gibson, prior to our respective overseas departures, to advance our detailed planning of our recently funded TELP project on violence and health, to begin next March. That project, drawn directly from the interdepartmental cooperation plan, involves all three of us in an intricate dovetailing of faculty and doctoral-student exchanges to foster two new courses at each campus, two new joint research projects on violence against women in South Africa, joint supervision of theses, and joint publications. The intricacy of that project confers enormous importance on the planning meetings we were able to hold during my visit.
Formal evaluation of the project can only be preliminary at this time. Because course marks will not be assigned until November, ethical standards dictate that I cannot look at (and therefore report on) students' course evaluation questionnaires before that point. However, the oral comments from students about the new course, as I heard them directly and indirectly through other faculty, were quite favorable.
My exit interview with the participating faculty member (Miss Parr) about the course and my teaching of it revealed strong commendation for its content and structure, with few concrete suggestions for future changes. Exit interviews of the two faculty members with whom I was able to work regarding the relevance of conflict resolution to their own ongoing research efforts similarly suggested some success along those lines.
The absence of faculty associated with the Crime and Social Control programme effectively precluded special exit interviews with faculty regarding the specific proposal I generated for a module on conflict resolution within that undergraduate programme. It is to be hoped, however, that some reactions will be forthcoming when those key players return to action.
