September 11, 2003
By Lucille Davie
AFTER several tumultuous years of troubled management, Wits University has appointed Professor Loyiso Nongxa as its new Vice-Chancellor.
At a joyous and exuberant ceremony on the campus on Wednesday afternoon Nongxa was installed in front of 3 000 students (who gathered outside the Great Hall in front of a large video screen), academic staff and numerous dignitaries, including cabinet ministers.
This appointment follows the dismissal of vice-chancellor Professor Norma Reid-Birley in November last year. She was appointed on a five-year contract in May 2001, in a contest for the position with Professor Leila Patel, who was widely expected to get the post, but who then became Deputy Vice-Chancellor and subsequently left for Rand Afrikaans University.
Reid-Birley's term in office was beset with controversy, offset by the death of her husband shortly after she took up her post. The university council criticised her management style and 18 months after her appointment she was offered a golden handshake or the possibility of an internal inquiry into her fall-out with her senior managers.
She refused the handshake but finally resigned in November. Nongxa was then appointed acting vice-chancellor in December 2002 and has now been appointed vice-chancellor and principal, and, as a gesture of the university's confidence in him, he has been appointed for a 10-year period.
Prior to Reid-Birley's appointment, vice-chancellor Professor Colin Bundy left after completing only three years of his five-year contract to take up a post at the London School of Economics, leaving a gap in which Patel was acting vice-chancellor before Reid-Birley was appointed.
In a ceremony that was interspersed with songs from the Wits Choir and diva Sibongile Khumalo, and much cheering and ululating from the audience, Nongxa was led on stage by his five-year-old daughter Buhle and his Grade 0 teacher, grey-haired Thandiwe Nobaza.
Nongxa was robed in a brilliant blue and yellow gown by the Chancellor of the university, Judge Richard Goldstone, and given a warm hug by Goldstone and Chairman of the Council, Judge Edwin Cameron, who said that there was "unanimous joy at your appointment".
Nongxa gave his address amid mischievous smiles and twinkling eyes, occasionally pointing a finger at his audience.
He said: "My biggest challenge is to 'cash in' on the goodwill that exists towards my appointment as vice-chancellor of this institution. This can be found in abundance within this institution, across the width and breadth of South Africa and internationally."
He promised a two-pronged transformation agenda that consisted of a need to "eliminate or eradicate race and gender stereotyping in academia", and "to enhance the institution's performance, its effectiveness and its reputation".
Guest speaker Education Minister Kadar Asmal said he felt exhilaration because this was the first time he'd been at "the inauguration of a herdboy as vice-chancellor", referring to Nongxa's humble beginnings in rural Eastern Cape.
He said that the father of apartheid, Hendrik Verwoerd, would be doing "somersaults in his grave" if he knew that the university was getting a black vice-chancellor.
Nongxa, who was affectionately referred to by everyone by his first name, attended the University of Fort Hare where he consistently obtained marks in the high nineties, achieving the best undergraduate results in the entire history of the university. He won the Rhodes scholarship to Oxford, where he obtained a doctorate in mathematics.
He has taught at several universities: Fort Hare, Lesotho, Natal and Western Cape, where he was appointed professor of mathematics and dean of the Faculty of Natural Sciences. He has also been visiting research scholar at several American universities.
On the basis of receiving international recognition for his research, Wits approached him in 2000 and offered him the post of Deputy Vice-Chancellor of Research. In 2002 he was appointed vice-principal and in November 2002 he became acting vice-chancellor.
He is often seen in the canteen having pap and vleis for lunch, and recognised in the corridors by his hearty, booming laugh.
And at the party under a tent on the lawns of the university after the ceremony, academic staff and others were eagerly lining up to shake his hand and bear-hug him. One academic staff member with a permanent smile on her face, summed up the feeling of many: "This appointment is restorative and affirming."
