New Postgraduate Hub centralises community

29 January 2026 - Wits University

‘Infrastructure of possibility’ to provide one-stop-shop of services and support for Wits postgraduate students.

The entrance wall is covered with striking photographs, carefully curated to depict themes of pathways, journeys, and smiling students, their eyes lit with joy, hope, ambition, apprehension … This is Wits University through the eyes of its postgraduate students.

Submitted by postgraduate students in a competition in late 2025, Wits Architecture lecturer and artist Sally Gaule curated the photographs to display an arresting visual tableau of postgraduates’ views of Wits.

The photographic display welcomes visitors to the new Wits Postgraduate Hub, located on the 2^nd floor of Solomon Mahlangu House in the rooms that formerly housed the Transnet Matlafatšo Centre (now relocated to the Wits Innovation Centre in the Flower Hall).

The official launch of the PG Hub on Tuesday 27 January preceded the University’s Postgraduate Welcome and Orientation programme, which kicked off on 28 January.

The Hub is a physical space where postgraduates can connect with the University’s central services such as the Research Office, the Internationalisation and Strategic Partnerships Office, the Fees and Scholarships Office, and ×ãÇò¾º²ÊappÅÅÃû Affairs, amongst others.

At the Hub, postgraduates will have access to an actual human for statistics support, for example, as well as space for private Zoom interviews and communal space for engagement, collaboration and occasional socialising.

But most of all, the Hub is about community.

Mahloromela Silas Seabi, Chairperson of the Postgraduate Association (PGA) was first alerted to the idea of a Hub in 2025, when Senior Director for Research, Professor Brett Bowman, asked Seabi to come look at the space to see if it was viable.

Seabi said, “In my head [I thought], ‘I’ve never seen a church empty’ – but I didn’t tell him that – but I believe this [Hub] is an altar, an intellectual altar, and when people go to church and they pray, some of them like to say they feel connected. This is going to be a different connection, an intellectual connection. And on top of an intellectual connection, there’s also support services: our ‘pastors’ [supervisors] to guide us.”

Seabi, who’s doing his Master’s in computer science, researching ransomware, said, “I believe this space is going to be used by our students. I believe our students are going to connect in here.”

Bowman says, “Community is central to this Hub, because it is often the most difficult part of a strategy to implement—ensuring students acquire real-time, inclusive support."

He added that postgraduates are entering a research ecosystem that is more competitive, more global, and more demanding than at any point in Wits’ history.

“If we are serious about our role as a continental research leader and a national anchor institution in postgraduate education, we must place postgraduate studies at the centre of our strategic ambitions,” said Bowman.

It’s hard to believe that the PG Hub was little more than “a plan on paper only four months ago”, before Professor Jennifer Fitchett galvanised its establishment following her appointment as Head of Postgraduate Researcher Development in 2025.

But the PG Hub had been a long time coming. The idea of a physical place for Wits postgraduates has been in the broader plan for the "Wits postgraduate journey" that Bowman shepherded into actual strategy in 2022.

Back then, Professor Zeblon Vilakazi (then the Deputy Vice-Chancellor: Research and Innovation) and Professor Robert Muponde (then Director of Postgraduate Affairs) envisaged a physical space that would serve as a one-stop-shop of services for postgraduates but also recognise that, especially for the often-lonely pursuit of postgraduate research, community matters too.

“The intention was not simply to create a new physical space,” said Bowman. “It was to bring a broader vision to life—one that meshes the physical and virtual worlds to produce a mechanism capable of guiding a prospective postgraduate student from their first inquiry, through admission and enrolment, into candidature, research progress, funding, professional development, and ultimately to successful graduation.”

The Hub’s model is deliberately porous, responsive, and collaborative, rather than centralized and controlling, said Bowman.

“I like to think of it as an infrastructure of possibility. The initiative we are launching today is not a standard, standalone intervention. It is the next stage in a carefully sequenced, institution-wide agenda that began in earnest in 2022. It is also a moment of beginning: a chance to consolidate our strengths, optimize delivery, and create a postgraduate environment that is rigorous, supportive, and world-class.

A phased approach

Fitchett, who worked tirelessly over December 2025 to bring the Hub to life in January, spoke about the value of a physical space for community and interdisciplinarity, described the two phases, provided the vote of thanks, and referenced the soft launch of the Graduate Online Learning Development (GOLD) programme, now integrated with Ulwazi.

Phase 1 is the communal hot-desk study space and the seminar room for postgraduate workshops and presentations, now open with the photo gallery. While Phase 1 is operational, Phase 2 will take place behind the photo wall and will include construction of the offices for the support structures and the Zoom room. Phase 2 construction is anticipated to be completed by late April.  

“Given the importance of both physical and virtual community in the postgraduate community, we have chosen to launch the PG Hub now to provide our students with access to the hot-desk workspaces and to this seminar room, while construction for Phase 2 takes place behind the beautiful wall of photos,” said Fitchett.

Morris said that the Hub is destined to become a vibrant, energetic space right in the heart of Solomon Mahlangu House – a space where postgraduates can meet, work, think, collaborate, and simply feel like they belong.

“Today is about more than opening a room. It’s about opening a home for our postgraduate students,” she said.