The long awaited Annual Report 2014 for the School of Mining Engineering at the University of Witwatersrand is available, which details the final year’s activities for the School under the leadership of Professor Fred Cawood, one of the International Mining Technology Hall of Fame judges. In his five-year tenure as Head of the School of Mining Engineering at Wits, Cawood focussed on the pursuit of 10 strategic goals, including imperative issues such us student-staff ratios, student throughput, research output and NRF ratings.
Also included in the report is incoming Head of School, Professor Cuthbert Musingwini’s vision in delivering on his strategic five-point plan. He was appointed in January 2015.
The aim of the strategic plan is to ensure the Wits Mining Engineering Team can deliver ‘Excellence in Teaching, Research and Service’, in line with the Wits Vision 2022 of being “a leading research-intensive university firmly embedded in the top 100 world universities by 2022”.
His five-year strategic plan addresses the following:
- Strategic Initiative 1: Increase normalised research productivity
- Strategic Initiative 2: Improve teaching and learning effectiveness
- Strategic Initiative 3: Enhance the academic project support system
- Strategic Initiative 4: Increase the visibility of the School and its staff
- Strategic Initiative 5: Review and establish internal and external collaborations
A summary of highlights for 2014 includes the evolving Digital Mine Initiative as well as the strong contribution made by the School to providing mining skills for industry, with numbers graduating from the undergraduate program increasing from 53 in 2013 to 72 in 2014. The output of research degrees also continues to steadily increase.