Doing things differently …

Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University is doing things differently - with research that is transdisciplinary

Doing things differently. It’s a catchphrase we like to use at Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University because we’d like to believe that we are trying to do things differently – well, certainly differently from your more traditional universities.

As a fairly new university (we are 10 next year), and one born from the merger of three very different institutions of higher learning (that’s the University of Port Elizabeth, the Port Elizabeth Technikon and the PE campus of Vista University), we have a wonderful opportunity to think afresh and not necessarily follow the same path as our established predecessors.

And so, where and when possible, NMMU endeavours to look beyond its “fixedness”.

It’s a term I learnt recently when attending a first-time workshop on “design thinking” presented by NMMU lecturer Prof Margie Cullen at our Business School. She’d attended a workshop at Harvard by Prof Srikanth Datar, and with his blessing, was now sharing the benefits of thinking afresh with anyone who’d care to listen. (Incidentally, there were many who cared to listen.)

In short, our “fixedness” (the set way in which we approach things), is often what stops us from seeing things differently. Instead of seeing a crisis as an opportunity to improve what we have, for example, we only continue to see it as a crisis.

So design thinking is about how you see things … and our assumptions become our worst enemies, especially when it comes to innovation. It blinds us to opportunities.

This fixedness, how we are set in our way of thinking because of our culture, beliefs and/or family traditions, means we will always get the same results.

We simply need to change the way we think.

But before we even get there, says Margie, we need to make time to think. Making that time will help us to ask the right questions and to clear the brain in thinking afresh. It is a time when you can ask yourself the likes of what you learnt today, what you can share, what you can do and what you should or should not repeat.

Thinkers are those who value ideas, explore options, embrace ambiguity, think out of the box, connect to the unconnected, add value and never fear failure. (Incidentally, South Africa does not embrace failure – once you’ve mucked up, you’re unlikely to ever get the consolatory bosom treatment as is commonplace in the States. And yet it is in failure that the biggest lessons are learnt).

Thinkers are those who identify needs and solve them even before we realise we had a need. Apple’s Steve Jobs was one such soul.

Thinkers do not defer responsibility, blaming others. Rather they embrace all that comes their way.

In fact, says Margie, our thinking is what defines us.

So it’s pretty exciting to know that NMMU is determined to avoid “fixedness” just because of what has gone before. (Though there are areas of fixedness that makes me want to scream … but I will save that for another blog).

One such example of the university’s determination to do things differently (to think about today’s real needs), is its integrated approach to learning. The silo approach of only knowing about your own subject is set to change. Students are increasingly being seeped in knowledge from many fields so that the economists can add value to the conservationists and the conservationists can advise the artists and the artists can reflect afresh on the work of the engineers etc.

It’s a transdisciplinary approach that the university is advocating because by working together we are better equipped for seeking solutions for a better tomorrow.

This was evident at the recent 2nd National Global Change Conference attended by about 300 students from universities throughout South Africa. They weren’t only science students, but came from all disciplines.

Ask Prof Maarten de Wet, an internationally-renowned scientist whose discipline links the hard sciences with the humanities in tackling challenges affecting the earth and humanities’ future.

“I am glad I made the move to come to NMMU. Here the university does things differently. We don’t want to think and act separately, but rather work in a comprehensive way – it’s about a transdisciplinary approach.”