46 FACULTY OF HUMANITIES ANNUAL REPORT 2021 with a particular focus on the practicalities of doing digital history, falling very much in the line of 4IR skill building and collaborations. While this will be housed at Stanford University, these presentations will be hybrid where a live presentation is also broadcast via zoom. We anticipate piloting two joint international PhDs: one collaborating with the Western Sydney University; another with the University of Strathclyde. We will secure our partnerships with the UJ Library and Special Collections at Doornfontein with the new director, Mr Sipho Zulu. We hope to develop internships for our Hons and coursework MA students, in the project of digitizing and work experience with archives. Our new post-doc will re-initiate the “UJ history society” for senior UG and post graduate students. It will be organised to discuss historical insights, and credible research, to inform acute Current Events, demonstrating the discipline’s applications for present policy study, problem-solving and critical thinking. This will run monthly and the dept trust will contribute to some catering and pizza, for F2F events. Next year we will be submitting our coursework MA programme application, with specialized qualifications in African Studies and Public and Applied History. This is work that began this year, in tandem with a review of our honours programme, and with a series of 4 workshops and input from the QA unit in 2021. We plan to work closely with Faculty in efforts to hold Finance and HR Partners accountable to running a smooth operation for ensuring that fundraising be experienced as a reward rather than a liability. Challenges We have faced some challenges in post-graduate satisfaction, especially during covid. Request for further structure and information flows have cropped up on a number of occasions. We hope that our longterm vision of a coursework MA will address this for many. Our ‘Journeys in History’ Seminar has been a response to the request for more participatory events. We anticipate that the “history society” meeting will offer further support. Transformation continues to be a deficit and a priority. We anticipate that the new post in 2022 will bring in a designated candidate, who will also speak (a) South African language(s) beyond English, and with connections in local SA communities for research and outreach. New strategies, performance requirements and a heavy burden of administration and form-filling, coming from faculty and university, should be rationalized to ensure that academic staff may do their research and teaching at the excellent level aspired to, without sacrificing needed personal and family time. Burnout is, at this writing, a genuine problem for a number of staff. One of the biggest challenges is with finance and administration. In the new online environment, and in the wake of disruptions, we will need to look to how trainings and better communications can contribute to a more ‘well-oiled machine’. There have been serious delays, and academic staff have been taking on much more administrative tasks due to poor support and support that is not sufficiently pro-active in the virtual environment.
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