Student involvement

carry out some TM activities. Therefore, there was normative agreement among the interviewees that the TM is a worthy function of the university and that the academic staff should actively participate in TM activities. However, there were variations regarding what constitutes the TM. The general feeling is that the TM or service to the community has not been defined clearly and, for that reason, members of the academic staff interpret the TM in slightly different ways.

The above discussion affirms that the key issue regarding the commitment of the academic staff at MUK to the TM is not whether members of the academic staff have positive attitudes about, and are involved and/or would like to be involved in, the TM but rather whether they are motivated and supported appropriately to carry out TM activities. Notwithstanding its centrality as an indicator of institutional commitment to the TM and as a necessity for the institutionalisation of the TM, faculty involvement and commitment alone cannot create sustainable TM efforts. The process of creating sustainable engagement, as Brukardt et al. (2006a) observe, “Requires [committed]

leadership, institutional infrastructure, and financial support that smoothes the path for faculty and students [and external communities] and continually attracts more individuals to participate and contribute” (pp. 17–18). For that matter, the involvement of the academic staff in the TM should be planned, supported and rewarded, not left to chance and/or to individual academic staff because even in situations where the members of the academic staff have positive attitudes about the TM, such potential can only be fully realised in the presence of supportive policies, structures and practices. Otherwise, the involvement of the academic staff would be either an act of altruism or an obligation, and, either way, it would be “professionally compromising for the faculty” (Ward, 2005, p. 228). For this reason, it is unsurprising that while all the interviewed academic staff acknowledged the importance of the TM, some of them explicitly noted that it is meaningless to spend time and effort on TM activities when there are better career-rewarding activities. R6, for example, opined,

Most academics, including myself … feel that that is an important aspect of our role in society, but the system in which we find ourselves does not adequately reward it. It does not adequately reward that function, so people feel that it’s a waste of time. If I am going to spend so many years working with a community to help it to take up the technology or adopt something and it is not going to count much towards my promotion, whereas my colleague, who is not doing that, is spending his time publishing, tomorrow, he will be promoted and I will not be promoted on the basis of what I am doing with the community. (Personal communication, March 27, 2012.)

(through curricular and co-curricular activities) from, various external communities, most of which have no opportunity to engage directly with universities. Hence, students’

awareness about the TM, as well as their involvement in TM activities, is both an indicator of institutional commitment to the TM and a prerequisite for the institutionalisation of the TM (Zlotkowski et al., 2006). Student volunteer programmes, though largely informal, are among the best ways through which knowledge exchange between universities and communities takes place; therefore, sensitising students to the TM, and developing programmes to inspire, support and reward students’ involvement in TM activities, is necessary for creating sustainable TM efforts at any university. Examples of such efforts include, but are not limited to, integrating the TM into curricular activities (e.g., creating opportunities for service learning, field-based learning, field attachment, projects or programmes centred in communities and other programmes that embrace engaged teaching and research) and providing institutional support and guidance to students’

volunteer/civic activities (Burkhardt & Lewis, 2005; Campus Compact, 2003; Gelmon et al., 2005; Holland, 1997).

Formally, the involvement of students in TM activities at MUK takes place through field attachment and, at times, field-based learning, both of which take students to the external communities. The interactions link the external communities to the learning activities and experiences of students, enable students to connect theory and practice, and consequently enable the university to produce graduates who possess subject-specific and generalist skills that are relevant to the labour market in particular and society in general.

Unlike field attachment, which is rewarded,⁷¹ compulsory for all undergraduate students, and is therefore an integral part of the undergraduate curricula at all the university colleges, field-based learning is part of only a few academic programmes.

In addition, the university, through the TDTC, FTBIC and NSIC, supports and encourages students to create new knowledge, to invent and to commercialise their inventions. Although these programmes focus on graduates, some student companies, such as Combined Efforts Uganda and High Peak Products have benefited from the FTBIC (MUK, 2012c). These companies produce processed products, such as ginger, coriander and cinnamon. Besides field attachment and field-based learning, the students participate in college open days and in university and college exhibitions (both on and off campus) where they, together with some members of the academic staff, display their innovations.

“College exhibitions like that of last week [organised by the CAES],” R7 noted, “are led by students. … Even in the main shows [e.g., the inter-university shows at Lugogo and agricultural shows in Jinja], we take students along because we want them to showcase what they have done” (personal communication, March 27, 2012). However, the very small

71 Students get credits for participating in field attachment; one cannot graduate without performing field attachment. Although this had been the practice in some disciplines—for example, education, medicine, and engineering—it became a university-wide practice in 2011. Despite its newness, all the interviewees appreciated its potential contributions to teaching and research but noted that the university must first address some of the existing challenges.

nature of these events and the fact that they happen infrequently means that they offer students limited opportunities to engage with the external communities.

Informally, students engage with the external communities through students’

associations,⁷² which, at times, organise and carry out various volunteer activities both on and off the university campus. Examples of such volunteer activities include (a) a yearly community outreach programme carried out in Kiboga district by the Makerere University Pharmacy Students’ Association and (b) a public dialogue, “Uganda at 50: Where is the Ugandan Teacher?,” organised by the Makerere Education Students’ Association on November 15, 2012 to deliberate on the status of the Ugandan teacher 50 years after independence (MUK, 2013). In fact, since university students come from different parts of the country, student associations, compared with the aforementioned organisational structures, can organise volunteer activities for, and exchange knowledge with, different external communities (e.g., rural schools, villages and ethnic groups), which might be difficult and/or expensive for the university to reach or to engage with effectively.

Although MUK, through the Department of the Dean of Students, encourages and allows students to form associations, the interview and documentary data show that the university offers neither financial support nor rewards (e.g., scholarships and awards) to motivate, support and/or reward the involvement of students in such activities. Besides, neither the university nor the colleges have well-structured and publicised support mechanisms to inform students about the opportunities for, and latest developments regarding, the TM. Therefore, while it is true that the university allows the formation and registration of student associations, and the associations network with, learn from and share knowledge with different external communities, such involvement is largely undocumented, unstructured and a one-off. In this regard, R16, for instance, revealed that,

Not long ago, students from the College of Humanities and Social Sciences took the initiative on the eve of independence or on the day after independence; they went to Katanga [a nearby slum], wearing their red gowns, and cleaned the area with a few politicians and academicians. But that’s ad hoc; we don’t have a systematic way of doing it—for example, that every first or last Saturday of the month, the university will go out to clean the town, or maybe every first Sunday of the month, the university will visit such and such a school. (Personal communication, April 10, 2012.)

Although the active involvement of students in TM activities has the potential to enrich the students’ learning (O’Meara & Jaeger, 2006; Zlotkowski et al., 2006) and to expand avenues for knowledge exchange between universities and the external communities, the involvement of the students in TM activities (including the opportunities and support mechanisms) at MUK remains relatively weak. It is partly structured, supported, recorded, monitored and rewarded; therefore, its potential benefits are yet to be fully realised.

72 Created by students based on their disciplinary orientations, cultural and religious backgrounds, areas of origin, and so forth, and registered with the Department of the Dean of Students.