Professor Ian Jandrell spends a lot of time imagining the future and what kind of high level skills will be required. When the good times come, he wants South Africa to be ready. Fortunately, as Dean of the Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment at Wits University, he’s in a better position than most to influence what kinds of skills the country develops.
Jandrell spent three months as Acting Dean before taking up his current position onÂÂ January 2014. He is no stranger to Wits, having served as the Head of the School of Electrical and Information Engineering (SEIE) for 10 years before becoming the Transnet Professor of Systems Engineering in the then newly established Transnet Centre for Systems Engineering (TCSE). He is also a Personal Professor in the SEIE where he holds the CBI-Electric Chair of Lightning.
His vision for the Faculty sees centres like the TCSE playing a crucial role as a solid line of third stream income. “Centres fill the space between the academy and industry. We have to walk a tightrope because we don’t want to become a consulting company, but there is a way to do short-term projects that meet genuine needs within industry and for those projects to feed into long-term research. We have to do things in parallel,” he says.
He is also intent on ensuring that the Faculty maximises its contribution to building South Africa’s economy. “We must be able to say that without this Faculty, industry would be worse off,” he says. There are three components to this: skills development, problem solving, and perhaps most importantly, knowledge generation. “Exiting graduates will sustain the economy, but if you want to grow the economy, you need research,” he says. As such, Jandrell distinguishes between training and education, and recognises the need to develop curriculums that prepare students for possible careers in research.
For the Faculty to maximise its contribution to the economy, it will need to bring together technical and creative skills. As Head of the SEIE, Jandrell was embedded within a single discipline. One of his biggest challenges going forward as Dean will be the need to understand and promote the range of very different professions that are housed within Engineering and the Built Environment so that they serve a common purpose.
“We need to make it clear that this is a faculty about both infrastructure and creativity. Without infrastructure you can’t grow the economy. But you need to apply your mind at the highest level to how best to deliver the infrastructure. You can throw up some concrete blocks or you can say, hang on, these concrete blocks are going to be there for years – how can we make them fit with the future needs of society so that they deliver real benefit? If you apply your mind, things last longer and have true meaning.”
According to Jandrell, there is no separation between good engineering design, good industrial design or good architectural design. “You’ve got to incorporate the human being. If you fail to recognise that you’re designing for people, you’ve lost the plot,” he says.
Another of his challenges as Dean is to increase access to the Faculty while still maintaining excellence. “We’ve been growing our student numbers, but we haven’t necessarily been increasing numbers of graduates along with that,” he says.
He also recognises that some students will go on to change career direction a number of times and that the priority of the Faculty should be to provide a very solid pure science foundation. “We’re not producing technologists. Our graduates will reskill themselves over and over again. South African engineers are famous for their flexibility. Our strength is in giving them a foundation that is incredibly broad and incredibly deep. The details of the profession can follow.”
He also believes in developing competence in critical thinking through the medium of literature and, while Head of School, saw literature introduced to the SEIE. “If you can imagine it, you can do it,” he explains. All schools in the Faculty have subsequently followed suit.
In fact, Jandrell seems to be all about breaking down boundaries, whether by removing the fences between academia and industry, recognising the common purpose of engineers and designers, introducing non-typical engineering subjects into engineering curricula, or cracking one of his trademark jokes.
He comes across as one of the nicest guys on campus, but his co-operative approach is also strategic and stems in part from his work in systems engineering. “There’s more to be gained by seeing where expertise overlaps. By breaking down insularities you have a better chance of speaking to the real needs of society and the economy, and attracting funding.” Jandrell lists a number of core competencies within Wits, spanning every Faculty. “Can you imagine the team we could put together?”
This brings him to a phrase that was introduced to him in the software engineering environment and seems to be his mantra for his term as Dean. “Leadership, teamwork and trust – we can’t work without them.”
