Touching a Lion: Collaborative Agenda of Decolonizing Professoriate and Doctoral Status for Transformation in Higher Education

Abstract

Touching a lion is the scariest thing one could ever do, but sometimes one must do so to dismantle thorny issues that one hardly speaks about, such as professoriate and doctoral status. As universities are lacking numerous decolonizing aspects for transformation in higher education, the authors of this paper are of the view that professoriate and doctoral status needs to be decolonized to fulfil the transformation agenda in higher education. The theory of Ubuntu and collaboration, using a transformative paradigm, underpinned the study. The article presents a non-conventional method in the form of storytelling and reflecting on the authors’ experiences in higher education in South Africa. Data were analyzed thematically. The findings of this study are that professors and doctors live in their own space where it is sometimes difficult to reach them. The study recommends the incorporation of Ubuntu and collaboration within the two statuses, which must be vital in decolonizing the status quo for transformation in higher education.

Keywords

• Collaborative
• decolonize
• doctoral status
• professoriate status