Building communities of belonging in academia
- Wits University
New Head of Postgraduate Studies and Researcher Development aims to cultivate connections and shared growth to ward off postgrad isolation.
When Professor Jennifer Fitchett applied for the role of Head of Postgraduate Studies and Researcher Development at Wits University, it was a decision driven by her belief in the importance of creating an environment that enables students to succeed not just academically but personally.
As an academic who is “invested and passionate about the postgraduate project,” and who remembers what shaped her own postgraduate journey, she wants to play an active role in strengthening the foundations already in place and contribute to the systems that support postgraduate learning and early-career research across the University.
Fitchett is a professor in the School of Geography, Archaeology and Environmental Studies, and served on the Senate Graduate Studies Committee and the Fees and Scholarship Merit Awards Committee for three years before taking up this role. She is a newly appointed member of the Academy of Science of South Africa (ASSAf), past President of the Society of South African Geographers and the 2023 recipient of the Royal Society of South Africa Meiring Naude Medal for early career research. She said applying to serve as the Head of Postgraduate Studies and Researcher Development for a five-year-term is rooted in a seed that was planted during her own PhD journey.
“I had three supervisors during my PhD, and being the subject of being supervised by people with different strengths taught me a huge deal about supervision,” she recalled. “Even before I finished my PhD, I knew that if I ended up in an academic position where I had a cohort of my own students, that building community was really important.”
“So from my very first group of students, I was always very intentional about connecting them to one another, helping them understand where there are similarities in the research they’re doing and encouraging them to share materials with one another.”
Cultivating connection and shared growth, she said, is an antidote to the isolation many postgraduate students experience. “There’s only so much we can do online. People need proximity. When you’re in the same space, you can notice when someone isn’t themselves, or when they’re struggling with something. You can step in and help.”
The importance of a flexible learning environment
Fitchett has helped develop postgraduate hubs that combine physical and digital resources, both within her own group of students and through her National Research Foundation Earth Systems Science Research Programme (NRF ESSRP) consortium project. These hubs provide spaces where students can access workshops, share presentations and engage with one another.
This flexibility, she explained, also allows students who might be doing lab or field work, to have access to resources and peers when needed. Her primary vision is to expand on this for postgraduate studies across Wits University.
“It’s about making sure people can access learning wherever they are. Another big focus is developing opportunities for people to build skills outside of what they necessarily need for their degree,” she said.
“I’m fortunate that Professor Brett Bowman created the building blocks for this in developing our Graduate Online Learning and Development [GOLD] Programme with Professor Jude Igumbor, which in addition to allowing students to access learning flexibly, provides opportunities to build their skills outside of what they necessarily need to have for their degree,” says Fitchett.
“When you’re studying towards your PhD, you’re hyper-specialising, and yet we have a job market which often requires the opposite. So a big focus for us is to give people the opportunities to build their skills outside of what they necessarily need to have for their degree.”
Other key priorities are monitoring and evaluation and using data to identify students who might be falling through the cracks. Fitchett says this will assist the University to maintain a clear view of the postgraduate landscape and identify areas that need targeted support.
“It’s about putting a finger on the pulse of where the bottlenecks are. If we can see where students are struggling, we can intervene early and make informed adjustments to improve outcomes.”
A personal and professional turning point
For Fitchett, her appointment is both a professional milestone and a personal affirmation. She says she was encouraged that the University recognised the value of having a young academic in the role.
“It feels like probably the biggest accomplishment of my academic career. Sometimes you just have to take a chance and see whether you meet the requirements of what they want. You can doubt yourself forever and decide you’re too young, too junior, or too inexperienced, but sometimes you just have to take a chance, and trust that your experiences within the core postgraduate and early career functions of the University align with the vision that the institution has for the role and the office.
“Looking at the job advert, I was confident that I had the required academic experience and competencies to put forward a competitive application. Taking that chance was really big for me. It’s great to see that the University wants somebody like me in the space, somebody who is young, energetic and outspoken.”