IntroductionSince 1994, the South African higher education sector has faced significant changes and challenges in its attempt to build an education system appropriate for a democratic society (Department of Higher Education and Training [DHET], 2013). Some key changes include the merger and integration process that occurred between 2002 and 2005, resulting in 46 universities and technikons merging to form a total of 23 (now 26) universities (Harrison, Pithouse-Morgan, Conolly, & Meyiwa, 2012) as well as the establishment of the DHET in 2009.A key challenge faced by the sector in its transformation process is the attraction and development of new and inexperienced academics (Balfour & Lenta, 2009; DHET, 2013). Flowing from this challenge, the DHET (2013, 2015) established, as one of its key priorities, the expansion of the academic profession and development of early-career academics (ECAs) through mentorship and support. Through this priority, DHET hopes to respond to the National Planning Commission's (2013) National Development Plan (NDP) 2030, which indicates that an estimated 4,000 academics from South African higher education institutions (HEIs) will retire by the year 2018. This requires focused strategies for creation of the next generation of researchers.To align itself with the priorities of DHET and the NDP and to address the challenge of retiring seasoned academics, our university has embarked on a process of employing ECAs. As stated earlier, attracting these academics is a challenge-but a further pressing challenge is their development and nurturing into productive researchers (Balfour & Lenta, 2009). In this article, we demonstrate through the literature that there are different meanings of what it means to be an ECA but research on how to address the challenge of developing and nurturing ECAs, especially within the South African context, appears to be at the periphery. To address this research gap, we share in this article our personal experiences and challenges that we face as ECAs in a research-intensive university. The article shows how, through a collective arts-based self-study project, we learned to form and position our learning and growth within the changing university setting.The article begins with conceptualising ECAs and justifying the need for prioritising their professional learning and development. After the conceptualisation of ECAs, we explain the nature and purpose of the collective arts-based self-study project though which we explored our experiences as ECAs. We use a social constructivist lens for understanding our experiences, and how we learn and position our growth within a transforming university environment. We then explain the methodology informing our research, and our experiences are thereafter presented in the form of data presentation and interpretation.To conclude we offer some lessons for other ECAs and university communities about how professional learning and development of ECAs can be understood and enhanced, given that they contribute to the future performance of all HEIs and knowledge production in the country.The Context of ECAs and Professional Learning and Development for ECAsThe professional development and support needed by ECAs has become an attractive phenomenon in local and international scholarly conversations (Geber, 2009; Geber & Nyanjom, 2009; Hopwood & Stocks, 2009; Price, Coffey, & Nethery, 2015; Remmik, Karm, Haamer, & Lepp, 2011; Thomas, McNaught, Wong, & Li, 2011). To fully understand the needs of ECAs, however, it is first necessary to identify who constitutes an ECA. In this regard, Price et al. (2015) argued that there is no agreed definition of what characterises an ECA, and they regard this as one of the major challenges for institutions trying to provide support to ECAs. In this article, we draw on Hemmings' (2012) definition, which states that ECAs are those academics who are within their first five years as members of staff in HEIs under a sessional, part-time, or full-time load. …

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“聆听我们的声音”：基于艺术的集体研究型早期职业学者关于我们在研究型大学中的学习和成长的信息

引言自1994年以来，南非高等教育部门在尝试建立适合民主社会的教育体系时面临着重大变化和挑战（高等教育与培训部[DHET]，2013年）。一些重要的变化包括2002年至2005年间发生的合并和整合过程，导致46所大学和技术公司合并形成总共23所（现在为26所）大学（Harrison，Pithouse-Morgan，Conolly和Meyiwa，2012年）随着2009年DHET的成立，该行业在转型过程中面临的主要挑战是吸引和发展新手和经验不足的学者（Balfour＆Lenta，2009; DHET，2013）。面对这一挑战，DHET（2013年，2015年）将其主要优先事项之一确定为：通过指导和支持来扩大学术专业和发展早期职业学者（ECA）。通过这一优先事项，DHET希望对国家计划委员会（2013）的2030年国家发展计划（NDP）做出回应，该计划表明，南非高等教育机构（HEI）预计将有4,000名学者在2018年退休。这需要重点关注为了适应DHET和NDP的优先事项并应对退休的资深学者的挑战，我们的大学已着手采用ECA。如前所述，吸引这些学者是一个挑战，但更紧迫的挑战是他们的发展和培养富有成效的研究者（Balfour＆Lenta，2009）。在这篇文章中，我们通过文献证明了ECA意味着不同的含义，但是关于如何应对发展和培育ECA的挑战的研究似乎处于边缘，特别是在南非背景下。为了解决这一研究差距，我们在本文中分享了我们作为研究型大学的ECA所面对的个人经验和挑战。本文通过一个基于集体艺术的自学项目展示了我们如何学会在不断变化的大学环境中形成和定位我们的学习和成长。本文从概念化ECA开始，并说明了优先考虑其专业学习和发展的必要性。在ECA概念化之后，我们解释了基于集体艺术的自学项目的性质和目的，尽管我们探索了自己作为ECA的经验。我们使用社会建构主义的视角来理解我们的经验，以及我们如何在变化的大学环境中学习和定位我们的成长。然后，我们解释用于研究的方法，然后以数据表示和解释的形式介绍我们的经验。总而言之，我们为其他ECA和大学社区提供了一些有关如何理解和增强ECA专业学习和发展的课程，因为它们有助于该国所有HEI和知识生产的未来表现。ECA的背景和ECA的专业学习与发展ECA所需的专业发展和支持在本地和国际学术对话中已成为一种有吸引力的现象（Geber，2009; Geber＆Nyanjom，2009; Hopwood＆Stocks，2009; Price，Coffey， ＆Nethery，2015； Remmik，Karm，Haamer和Lepp，2011； Thomas，McNaught，Wong和Li，2011）。但是，要完全了解ECA的需求，首先必须确定谁构成ECA。在这方面，Price等。（2015年）认为，关于ECA的特征没有统一的定义，他们认为这是试图为ECA提供支持的机构面临的主要挑战之一。在本文中，我们借鉴了Hemmings（2012）的定义，其中指出，ECA是那些在会期，非全日制或全日制工作中担任HEI工作人员的头五年内的学者。…