A swift, secure, stimulating experience awaits postgraduate students
- Wits University
A packed Great Hall was abuzz with excitement as the 2025 cohort of postgraduate students convened for their Orientation and Welcome on 5 February.
The programme kicked-off with the solemn and impressive procession of Wits academics into the iconic Great Hall, red doctoral gowns billowing, to ascend and take a seat on the stage.
Mr Jerome September, Dean of Students Affairs and Programme Director, said that the representation of senior academic leadership seated on stage “set the tone and agenda” for postgraduate research and training at the University. Their participation is testament to the University’s commitment, at the highest levels, to postgraduate research and development
Similarly, the 2025 cohort of postgraduates had, through their attendance at the orientation programme, already demonstrated their commitment to their academic journey, said September.
The postgraduates present in the Great Hall reflected just a fraction of the total 17 000 postgraduate registrations at Wits in 2025 – some are new to postgraduate studies, and to Wits, others returning. “You are all Witsies now!” said September. “No matter where you came from, you are now a Witsie!” he said to thunderous applause.
Get set for success
September urged postgrads to participate in student life. “Postgrad studies can be lonely,” he emphasised (September is himself a PhD student). “It can be very lonely – in the middle of the night, it’s just you and your thesis. This is why creating a community is so important. Build those networks and bridges. You are the driver! Tap into them at 2am. Take advantage of the resources available to you. The system is set up for you to succeed.”
The postgraduate journey re-imagined
Dr Jude Igumbor, Academic Programme Director GOLD (Graduate Online Learning and Development), led the creation of one such system. The state-of-the-art Graduate Online Learning (GOLD) programme is unlike any other in South African higher education. The GOLD programme aims to “reimagine the postgraduate journey” and is a component of Wits’ Strategic Plan for Postgraduate Research Training 2023 – 2027.
This Strategic Plan is based on three pillars geared towards a “swift, secure, stimulating” postgraduate experience, said Professor Brett Bowman, Head of Postgraduate Strategy, with the goal of transforming postgraduate students into scholars who are "knowledge-producers of the future in the trifecta of the country, the continent, and the world."
No ‘sink or swim’ mentality
To realise this vision, Bowman said that the Wits Research Office, as “the toolmaker engine for Wits,” developed the strategy informed by a “theory of change” to address three overarching themes: building a community of scholarship; innovative systems; and funding.
Within each theme there exists subsets of strategically developed pedagogies, resources, processes, and systems designed to support postgraduates at every step of their academic journey.
“For the first time, everything is integrated into one [online] dashboard,” said Bowman. Some of the innovative systems and processes now available to postgraduates include the AI-enabled GOLD programme comprising 50 short courses geared towards postgraduates, a funding portal, and extensive library databases.
Other resources include faculty-specific opportunities and joint degrees with local and international partners, such as the Wits-Edinburgh Programme in Sustainable African Futures (WESAF).
The Graduate Research Management (GRM) system provides tools for enhancing, documenting and better signposting the postgraduate journey, as well as generating the much-needed administrative data required for real-time monitoring and evaluation of student progress.
“We don’t want a ‘sink or swim’ mentality at Wits,” said Bowman. This is why building a community of scholarship is fundamental – hence, the Wits Doctoral Academy.
Wits Doctoral Academy
Professor Jill Bradbury, Academic Programme Director, Wits Doctoral Academy (WDA), said that the approach to the WDA was informed by the “broad principles of the three Cs: curiosity, creativity, and connectivity.”
The WDA, which launches in March 2025, will address and support the three phases of doctoral scholarship: proposal writing, data collection/research, and thesis writing. Furthermore, for the first time at Wits, doctoral students will take the VIVA oral examine, Bradbury said.
“You are creators of knowledge now!” she told postgraduates – and soon, through the Wits Doctoral Academy – part of a community of scholarship.
Human knowledge in the age of AI
A panel discussion on the topic, In the age of AI will humans still be needed to generate new knowledge? was a highlight of the Postgraduate Welcome and Orientation – particularly the participation of ‘Peppa,’ an AI robot, as a panellist. Professor Emmanuel Ojo, Deputy Head of the Wits School of Education, chaired the session.
Panellist Professor Sumaya Laher, a psychologist in the School of Human and Community Development and WESAF Programme Director, urged postgraduates to consider the ethics of AI in their research and to ask, “what will be my role?” in their scholarly spaces. Laher doesn’t believe that AI will replace humans – “AI can’t recognise talent” – and, she says, it’s still in its infancy.
Dr Oluwarotimi Randle, Head of the Department of Digital Arts, pointed out that Peppa had gotten the panellists’ introductions wrong (which it did) – a deliberate ‘planted’ error to demonstrate that despite AI’s benefits “we have agency.”
Professor Yahya Choonara, Director of the Wits Advanced Drug Delivery Platform (WADDP) in the School of Pharmacy and Pharmacology, enthused about the potential of AI for the design of novel targeted drug delivery systems, nanomedicine, functional biomaterials, and regenerative medicines.
The remainder of the first day of the Wits Postgraduate Orientation and Welcome included presentations by Dr Daisy Selematsela, Chief Librarian; a Student Life component, by Mr Tshegofatso Mogaladi, Deputy Dean of Students; Scholarships and Research funding literacy, by Dr Yolanda Davids; and research with impact and innovation by Mr Letlotlo Phohole, Wits Innovation Centre Senior Programme Manager. The day concluded with a social networking event.
The three-day Orientation and Welcome concludes on Friday, 7 February, with Faculty and School-specific information sessions, and social and networking outings and opportunities towards building Wits’ 2025 postgraduate cohort community of scholarship. See the full programme