As Faculty of Economic Management Sciences (F-EMS), we believe that we have a significant contribution to make in the social, economic and educational development of both our internal and external communities. We further believe that this contribution should be mutually beneficial. In other words, both the faculty and its students on the one hand, and the respective communities on the other hand, should benefit from such an engagement. F-EMS endeavours to ensure that community engagement activities are aligned, integrated and infused in the core areas of business. The faculty embraces the values of human dignity, equality, academic integrity, ethical academic-scientific endeavours, tolerance and respect, as well as devotion to excellence, responsibility, accountability, fairness, transparency and justice. We ensure that an authentic need within a specific community is sufficiently addressed in a sustainable manner, by students and/or members of F-EMS through skills, expertise, and knowledge exchange with the community.
The current year was dominated by the COVID-19 pandemic to date, resulting in the annulment of lots of planned community involvement activities. Even though the arrival of the pandemic happened at the time where technology was advancing rapidly, some of the planned community-related activities had to be cancelled in response to very strict COVID-19 restrictions and also to avoid contracting and the spreading of the virus. Schools within the faculty had to review their plans for a year and align them with the current situation. Most of the projects completed were in response to rescuing the communities who were severely affected by the pandemic around the three campuses.
According to the DVC community engagement and stakeholders relation impact and sustainability 2020 report, out of 335 engaged activities generated by the NWU, F-EMS came out to be the second-largest contributor after NWU students who generated 125 projects. The 70 engaged activities completed by F-EMS generated 120 impacts in the community. Our community-engaged activities comprised outreach, engaged teaching and learning, and research and innovation. According to the report, F-EMS faired above average in these three areas. In general, F-EMS contributed a larger percentage preceded by students. The majority of engaged activities by the faculty consist of outreach (49%), teaching and learning (44%), and research and innovation (7%). This is not a surprising finding since most of the projects were driven to address the disaster borne by COVID-19. The situation did not allow most researchers to conduct studies within communities and students could also not do their service-learning in the community. Despite the scary situation, we are faced with, we rose above the storm to ensure that we maintain the performance in Community involvement.
I wish to sincerely express my gratitude to the Executive Dean, my fellow Deputy Deans, all Directors, CE Campus coordinators, schools’ conveners and all staff members for their contribution to community engagements. Some of you risked your lives by feeding and clothing the needy communities, helping them rebuild their homes, rescued strayed domestic animals and spent your money to give hope to hopeless people.
I also wish to take this opportunity to wish everyone best of luck for the rest of 2020 and to also wish you a merry Christmas and a prosperous 2021.
Prof Ntebo Moroke
F-EMS Deputy Dean, community engagement and stakeholder relations