The Mergers: what's new at UJHB, UKZN, NMMU & Tukkies?

摘要

Given the recent changes in the university environment over the past year or two, a short. overview has been prepared which summarises the implications for each of the four geology departments at newly merged university campuses (alphabetically, using their 2004 names, these include the U of Durban-Westville and U of Nata, U Port Elizabeth (UPE), U of Pretoria, and Rand Afrikans University (RAU). This process may be viewed as the academic equivalent of the reorganisations, redivision, reconstitution and ama -gamations that are a routine feature of the mining industry, and which would probably require a thick quarterly publication to keep track of. The adjustments to Geology at UKZN are the most dramatic of the four, inasmuch as two independent and complete geology departments have been combined. However, the merger of the University of Natal and the University of Durban-Westville officially occurred early in 2004, and the effects have been summarised in the article provided for the Sept. 2004 issue of GB (pg. 20, GB 47, #3). Beyond that, the actual physical merger is still in progress, with the details of physica location and School affiliations still apparently in flux. All will presumably become clear to the rest of us in July during the course of the annua national geological gathering in Durban, GEO2005 (see info provided elsewhere in this issue).