43 already demonstrated his research and publication abilities. Despite the turbulent times, the dept has been going through the last couple of years, we were still able to keep the dept on track, by committing to excellent teaching and research, introducing new opportunities and collaborations. Department of History This year the Department of History demonstrated resilience and commitment in all areas of academic work. Seasoned by the experiences of Covid-19 lockdown in 2020, our online teaching and learning, use of technologies, and efforts around student success and retention, were enhanced this year. We were active in our research, half of us working steadily on book manuscripts. The department kept up with its seminar series and public events, developing some additional initiatives to fostered student interest in history and international academic participation in the life of our department. There have been some ambitious experiments in T&L, digital projects, post-graduate recruitment and publicity. In difficult times, however, it is important not contribute to a triumphalist narrative at the expense of the grounded realities. For historical research, covid and lockdowns has meant specific challenges, including access to archival resources, especially as international travel is limited by uncertainties. Members of the department – staff and students – have also fielded a range of very difficult circumstances, including isolation, illness and intimate losses of family and friends. Under these circumstances, enhanced pressures for finding a balance between emotional wellbeing and family life, on the one hand, and, new challenges related to university work on the other, have been difficulty. These have, in some cases, contributed to physical and mental health challenges. Within this context, there are a number of achievements to celebrate, plans made for looking ahead, and challenges to flag. Achievements Teaching and Learning: The year 2021 represented an experiment in Continuous Assessment (with opportunity for a supp) for all History modules. Pass rates and student retention and progression in our post-graduate programmes were exceptional this year, most modules experiencing over 80% pass rates. The work of tutors deserves an important mention, for mentoring and outreach. Lecturers and tutors made use of the Blackboard retention centre. This year, undergraduate and honour students received training in various online research and archiving tools especially during Semester 1, where open source software packages Diigo, Zotero and Omeka featured in student assessments in several modules. In 2A and 3A, there were also experiments with group work, increasingly celebrated for fostering a collaborative and applied learning ethos. Two new honours modules were developed within existing codes, as well as one third year term module: each of these emphasized hands-on, practical experience with source materials, interpretation and research methods. There were some teaching awards: Greg Barton and Brett Bennett received Senior Fellow status for the Advance HE scheme, for teaching excellence at Western Sydney University and UJ. A UJ Humanities Faculty prize went to Thembisa Waetjen for innovation in teaching and learning. In terms of Research, the department maintained good performance with publications for 2021 and others put into the pipeline, despite the difficulties of research. Publications included articles for the Oxford Research Encyclopedia for African History, a forum published in Historia on economic history (two staff members participated), a ground-breaking piece on ‘hydrocolonialism’, two co-authored articles focused on Indo-Pacific environmental histories, among others. Three recently graduated post-graduate students published articles from their UJ research, two of them in international journals this year. The department’s Stephen Sparks inaugurated the first annual post-graduate/alumni workshop, featuring a pre-circulated paper and extra-institutional discussant, in order to begin to grow student publications. History can feel happy in other ways about contributing to South
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