Prof Solomon Kgatle

“If my theology does not solve African problems, it is not worth pursuing.” These are the words of Professor Mookgo Solomon Kgatle, an African Pentecostalism theologian who has recently been promoted to full professor at Unisa at the age of 37.

Kgatle has always been intentional in raising an army of African Pentecostal scholars through teaching and learning, master’s and doctoral (M&D) supervision, coaching, mentoring and leadership.

Rooted in a firm foundation of discipleship instilled by his parents, the late Reverend Matidi Daniel Kgatle and Puledi Kgatle, Kgatle completed a PhD in Theology at the University of Pretoria in 2016.

The following year, 2017, he joined Unisa as a senior lecturer in the College of Human Sciences. Today, the young man, born in Refilwe Village in Ga-Mamaila, Ga-Mphotwane, Limpopo, is a visiting scholar in the United Kingdom at the Centre for Pentecostal and Charismatic Studies, University of Birmingham and the Oxford Centre for Religion and Culture at Oxford University.

Intentional in African Pentecostalism scholarship

Kgatle is a participant in Unisa’s Vision Keepers Programme, which supports research excellence by providing funding to pursue research; produce high quality, accredited research publications; and increase the success rate of external grant applications by working with experienced research mentors from institutions other than Unisa.

He has published 47 peer-reviewed articles in high-impact journals, of which 16 have been indexed by the Web of Science and 29 by Scopus. He has written three monographs (books) and edited three volumes, published by leading international publishers such as Routledge and Palgrave Macmillan. On top of that, he is also a reviewer of many local and international theological journals, books and scholarship/grant proposals.

He has supervised three PhD students to completion and presented eight international conference papers. He is a member of the Society for Pentecostal Studies and European Research Network on Global Pentecostalism (GloPent) and the Founding President of the Southern African Society for Pentecostal Studies.

Kgatle is currently writing his fourth monograph, Doing Pentecostal theology: Research methodology, theological disciplines and contextualization and editing a volume, Pastoral Interventions during the Pandemic - Pentecostal Perspectives on Christian ministry in South Africa. Furthermore, he is currently supervising eight M&D students.

The Research Support Directorate had a chat with the Y2 NRF-rated researcher about his journey to professorship and on how an emerging scholar can become a full professor.

Take us through your journey from senior lecturer to full professorship.

It is a “long walk” from a position of being a senior lecturer to full professorship. As the Zulu song lyrics goes, “Inde lendlela engiyi hambileyo”. I joined UNISA in August 2017, as a senior lecturer, and two years later (2019) I was appointed associate professor and became a full professor in 2021, after another two years. 

To become associate professor at Unisa, you need a doctoral degree, teaching experience, student supervision and several research outputs, depending on the requirements by a specific college. I must say that research is my strength, as I already had about 20 peer-reviewed articles in 2019 - exceeding the expectations! In other words, if research outputs were the only benchmark, I would already have become full professor in 2019.

However, research outputs are not the only requirements for full professorship, I had to have a clear research reflection and research plan for the next five years. In addition, full professor applicants, unlike associate professors, should be able to demonstrate that they have been mentoring others in teaching, research and innovation. In other words, full professors are academic leaders of junior colleagues in their department and their M&D students.

How can an emerging scholar purposely become a full professor?

1)     Develop your niche area

A professor should have a clear niche area. In other words, “avoid being a jack of all trades and a master of none”. It is even better when you are clear about this from your master’s and PhD studies. For me, it was after my PhD studies that I identified African Pentecostalism within the discipline of missiology and field of Theology as my niche area.

2)     Be part of a research community

After identifying the niche area, you need to become part of a research group in the specific niche area by joining academic societies in that field. This will give you exposure to new developments in the niche, academic conferences and possibly research publications. In addition, you will be able to interact with leading scholars in that field.

3)     Allocate time in a day for research

It is my culture and practice to allocate at least two to three hours a day for research. I know that academics are overwhelmed by administrative, teaching and learning work, but it helps to find time and allocate it for research. If you can type 1000 words a day, it can give you a chapter and article per month.

4)     Be disciplined

To follow a routine like the one prescribed above, you need to be very disciplined. You need to work within a first quadrant of priorities, as discussed by the late Steve Covey in his book, Seven habits of highly effective people. According to Covey, in this quadrant you only work with things that are important and urgent; matters that are unimportant and not urgent are found in the fourth quadrant and can be dealt with in your spare time.

5)     Be humble

My advice to emerging scholars is to remain humble. According to 1 Peter 5:6-7, when you humble yourself under the mighty hand of God, he will lift you up.

6)     Its perspiration not inspiration

You can be inspired, but if you do not perspire, success will not come. It is said in Sepedi, “kodumela moepa thutse gago lehumo le letswago kgauswi”. This means that anyone digging a precious plant, will have to dig deeper as success requires hard work. In this context, it takes hard work to produce peer-reviewed articles, books, PhD graduates and so forth.

Kgatle will be delivering a virtual inaugural lecture on “Peculiarities in the African Pentecostal tradition: disciplinal and decolonial perspectives” on Wednesday, 23 February at 17:00. You can be part of the occasion by using the following link: https://teams.microsoft.com/l/meetup-join/19%3ameeting_ZTIxNDFiYzctMDI4Ni00YWUwLThhOTMtYzNlZjE4MDk4ZWJl%40thread.v2/0?context=%7b%22Tid%22%3a%22ca9a8b8c-3ea3-4799-a43e-5510398e7a3b%22%2c%22Oid%22%3a%22ab98478f-14c3-4217-9069-a8faba837dd9%22%7d

* Compiled by: Mpho Moloele, PR and Communications, Department of Research, Innovation and Commercialisation