Professor Michael Kgomotso Masemola, PhD (Sheffield, UK), NRF B-rated researcher is the Deputy President of SAHUDA. He is the Executive Dean of the Faculty of Human Sciences at the Vaal University of Technology (VUT).
With BA(WITS), BA Hons (WITS), MA(Natal) and PhD (Sheffield, UK) degrees under his belt, Professor Masemola assumed duties on Monday 1st August 2022 as the Executive Dean of the Faculty of Human Sciences. Prof Masemola joins VUT from Unisa where he held a similar position of being the Executive Dean of the College of Human Sciences that has a student enrolment of 52 000 students, where he developed and led a team that boasts 86 NRF-rated researchers as well as 497 staff with PhDs who support research Niche Areas.
As part of his Future-proofing approach, aligned to priorities identified in the VUT Strategic Plan 2020-2024, Prof Masemola places special emphasis on data-driven Human Capacity Development for both academics and administrative & support staff. He is poised to now lead Mentorship, Innovation and equity-based Transformation that is reflected in curriculum reform and demographic diversity.
This will form the bedrock on which Prof Masemola will continue to champion the localisation of the Sustainable Development Goals, the AU Agenda 2063 “The Africa We Want” priorities and the National Development Plan 2030 targets in the context of VUT’s contribution to the National Innovation System. This is consistent with the Strategic Vision of VUT, considering that these interventions resonate with VUT’s commitment to meeting its Annual Performance targets relating to knowledge production that is inextricably tied to the ideals of the NIHSS. Prof Masemola believes in building Digital Competency for all. Students, Admin Staff as well academics will benefit from the Executive Dean’s intervention of improving VUT’s performance culture by digital means. Besides upskilling and reskilling of all workers and students, for instance, Prof Masemola believes that cybersecurity awareness is a baseline area of development for all at VUT’s Faculty of Human Sciences. Ditto for online tracking of PQM Viability, rollout of Enrolment Plans as well as performance management. This, he says, is the meeting point of performance culture with Digital Humanities. Professor Masemola has already set up prospects for collaborative exchange MOUs for staff and students This will include undergraduate students, emerging or upstart academics, as well as Admin and Support staff who wish to do bespoke short courses and modules abroad. He values partnerships with industry in the pursuit of addressing challenges in the domains of energy, climate change, decarbonization, market volatility, the water crisis, poverty alleviation and access to Higher Education through Engaged Scholarship that feeds on VUT’s Memoranda of Understanding with SETAs.
A renowned scholar with considerable international recognition as indicated by his NRF B-rating, Prof Masemola is the author of the monograph book South African Autobiography After Deleuze (Brill & RODOPI, 2017). He is also a co-editor (with Liberty M. Hove) of Strategies of Representation in Auto/biography (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014). Recently, he contributed book chapters such as “Autobiography in Africa” in The Oxford History of the Novel in English: The Novel in Africa and the Atlantic World, edited by Simon Gikandi (Oxford University Press, 2016).
A Full Professor of English Literature, Prof Masemola has published in top-drawer journal articles locally and internationally. He holds the distinction of being internationally recognized through international Keynote Addresses and, as an example, an invitation by Professor Stephen Ross of York University to contribute to the prestigious Routledge Encyclopedia of Modernism. https://www.rem.routledge.com/.
Among several scholarly achievements, Professor Masemola has participated in the Trans-Atlantic Platform: Recovery, Renewal and Resilience in a Post-Pandemic World as a virtual panelist, adjudicating grant proposals from Europe, North America, and South America—at the behest the Research and Innovation Support and Advancement arm of the National Research Foundation. He has as recently as 2019 delivered papers at the Yan’an University’s School of Marxism in China back-to-back with presentations at the University of Nairobi. All his international conference papers and Keynote Addresses—from Oxford University to Qatar University, from the University of the West Indies to Zurich University—have resulted in research outputs in esteemed publishing presses.
As an Executive Dean and Full Professor who leads by example, Prof Masemola continues to publish in accredited IBSS/ISS Journals of good standing. Some of his works published in 2020-21 include:
- Michael Kgomotso Masemola “Enter the jargon: the intertextual rhetoric of Radical Economic Transformation following the logic of Demosthenes’s oratory,” African Identities, Vol 19, Issue 2, pp. 209-220 (2021) 1st Published online: 29 Jul 2020 https://doi.org/10.1080/14725843.2020.1796589
- Michael Kgomotso Masemola: “African Cultural Memory in Fred Khumalo’s Touch my Blood and its Metafictional Para-texts” in Journal of Black Studies, Vol 52, number 2 (2021), pp.103-122 first published online in Sept 2020 https://doi.org/10.1177/0021934720959389
Prof Masemola continues to play a leading role in creating a transformed and agile knowledge organisation that shape and influence all aspects of the knowledge enterprise with unwavering commitment to transformation, impact, excellence, and sustainability.
The Vaal University of Technology will surely benefit immensely from Prof Masemola’s combined innovative leadership and governance as well as research expertise that, by his humble insistence, flow from the godliness of YHWH Elohim (Baruch Hashem).