Page 16 - DUT Annual Report 2020

14
dut solidarity fund
r899 933.57
Assist Students
RAISED
from staff + external donors
Devices
Data
Meals
DURBAN UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY ANNUAL REPORT 2020
effects of
COVID-19
in South Africa remains a big challenge that no single institution can resolve. Consequently, the reliability of connectivity remains an ongoing problem that affects online engagements across the broadest spectrum.
STEWARDSHIP
The Stewardship Perspective is about recognising that people are both the source and engine of everything that we, as the DUT community, do. In our internal engagements, we emphasise that it is the Right people, in the Right seats, playing their Rightful roles and taking responsibility and accountability in those roles that ensures success. Extrinsically, it is about the transformation and change we must see in systems and processes at institutional level, and at individual level, in the behaviour and attitudes of our people. Intrinsically, it is about our people’s minds, souls and hearts. People, the Right people, are the fulcrum or the pivot of organisational growth, development, transformation and change. Basically, it is at this level that we deal with matters of human provisioning processes.
As indicated in the introduction, each Perspective has three SOs. The three SOs of Stewardship, namely Lived Values, Institutional Culture and Creativity, are foundational and speak to the core of our DNA. As one of our ‘enabling and effecting’ Perspectives, Stewardship is the bedrock of everything we seek to achieve by 2030.
Lived Values
The introduction and implementation of a new strategy always requires the need to mobilise popular support and create an environment for engagement. For this reason, we declared 2020 as Year-0 of ENVISION2030’s implementation, precisely because we had to focus on a number of its building blocks. ‘Values and principles’ sit as connectors of our two DNA strands of being ‘people- centred and engaged’ and ‘innovative and entrepreneurial’.
The University used the tried and tested and internationally acclaimed ‘Living Values Methodology’ to cascade values- and principle-based conversations in August 2020, commencing with the Vice-Chancellor and his direct reports, and on to the next level of line management. At least 82 staff members at this senior
level participated in the workshops. Human Resources continued to conduct these conversations at different levels of the University, including incorporating them in our staff induction programmes. These workshops attracted 677 staff members over a 3-month period from October to December 2020. Evidence so far indicates great commitment and enthusiasm, at least amongst those who have participated in these conversations.
ENVISION2030 places a huge premium on the concept of ‘DUT People’. By this we recognise the varied but important roles played by four categories of DUT people or community, namely Council, staff, students and alumni.To this extent, presentations on ENVISION2030, with particular emphasis on values and principles, also targeted members of Council, students and alumni.
The outbreak of COVID-19 significantly delayed the launch of these conversations, notwithstanding the fact that the process of embedding and living our values and principles is a long-term one. The process will continue next year, deploying a combination of different techniques that test how well we are traversing this new path.
One of the values and principles we live by is compassion. In pursuit of this specific principle, a number of our staff members made contributions the DUT Solidarity Fund: Committed and Compassionate, which we set up with a view to assisting those adversely affected by the effects of COVID-19. We raised an amount of R889 933.57, mainly from our staff and a few external donors, which will be used to assist students with devices, data and meal allowances.
Institutional Culture
Institutional Culture is a code that lies at the very heart of what defines us as a unique institution with a unique collective of people that are part of it. It informs the way we are and the way we influence and respond to our environment. Ultimately, it informs how we will develop towards our most vital, actualised and impactful manifestation as a university; a university that is fully conscious of its stewardship in society; one whose resolve is to revolutionise its systems and