Addicted to the status quo - academic fantasies and the primary task in Faculties of the Humanities

Abstract

The current state of the Humanities in South African universities is frequently attributed to the 1997 Higher Education Act and the new educational dispensation it initiated. This article discusses some of the pervasive fantasies inhibiting the effective management, and especially the management of change, in one Faculty of the Humanities. Several of these fantasies appear to prevent the Faculty from being able to manage itself adequately within the new tertiary educational system. It was to these inabilities and resistances that a research project was directed in 2000/2001. It sought to explore some of the perceptions held by Heads of Departments about the primary task at various organisational levels within the university. Some of the major findings are included in the article which, inevitably, is a mere skeleton of the complete research, running, as it does, to some 60000 words.


South African Journal of Higher Education Vol.18(2) 2004: 109-130