College of Business and Economics | Annual Report 2021 3 Why are the CBE results so encouraging? Since lockdown, staff and students have for two years been confined to a restricted living environment, which emphasised the need to focus on the physical and psychological wellbeing of the CBE community. Staff and students soon gained deep insight into the taxing nature of multitasking the pedagogy of care. On a more critical note, unpacking the CBE 2021 progress portrays how the CBE heart’s four chambers are beating systemically and rhythmically. • A UJ CBE mindset empowers the new generation CBE academics and academic governance staff to drive support networks. The roles and responsibilities of academics and academic governance staff have expanded. Therefore, much more thought and action are being invested in staff and student support, in reconnecting staff and students’ networks, and in organisational wellbeing. Ultimately, to sustain the CBE spirit of agility. • The CBE has invested the gift of time into longerterm strategic thinking by creating plan-ahead teams, deliberately including people identified as future leaders. The CBE’s investment in people skills development, awakening mindsets to manage in new ways and building capacity across the CBE, has enabled a vast shift in secured progress. In Prof Chris Brink’s words, this shift is marked by an alignment of “what we are good at” as much as “what we are good for.” • The CBE grows empathic managers able to stimulate solutions. It does not take massive investments to cultivate the ability to lead. The journey starts with realising how easy it is to fall prey to the temptation to micromanage contingencies. • The COVID-19 pandemic has taught the CBE that a broad leadership approach yields better results when compared to a leadership team that can do a few things very well. The CBE has functioned at an incredible pace since 2017, regardless of the challenges that came our way. The 2021 Annual Report testifies to much resilience and innovation. For ease of interpretation, the CBE monitors and evaluates progress against UJ’s six Strategic Objectives (SO1 to SO6) outlined in the UJ Strategic Plan 2025. COMPARING 2021 WITH 2020 • SO1 (excellence in research and innovation) and SO5 (national and global reputation management) account for 40 key performance indicators (KPIs), of which 24 (60%) improved, 4 (10%) were sustained, and 12 (30%) showed slightly lower results. • SO2 (excellence in teaching and learning), SO3 (an international profile for global excellence and stature) and SO4 (an enriching studentfriendly learning and living experience) account for 33 KPIs of which 26 (79%) improved, 3 (9%) were sustained, and 4 (12%) showed slightly lower results. • SO6 (fitness for global excellence and stature) accounts for 27 KPIs, of which 25 (93%) improved, and 2 (7%) showed slightly lower results. • Overall, the CBE has progressed in 75%, maintained 7%, and showed slightly lower results in 18% of its KPIs. Table 1 reflects essential observations. Highlights and key trends from the College’s activities over the past five years, notably since 2020, are summarised in Table 2 and will be discussed further in more detail in this report.
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