Deputy Vice-Chancellors
Professor T Nhlapo | Professor Sandra Klopper | Professor C Soudien | Professor D Visser
Professor Thandabantu Nhlapo
Deputy Vice-Chancellor
Professor Thandabantu Nhlapo is the senior deputy vice-chancellor. He acts for the Vice-Chancellor during periods of absence and he provides direct support to the Vice-Chancellor in the management and co-ordination of the university's special projects.
Professor Nhlapo's main portfolio is to address the strategic goal of internationalisation, and more specifically making UCT an Afropolitan university. His portfolio includes being the Chair of the Management Committee of the Universities Science, Humanities, Law and Engineering Partnerships in Africa (USHEPiA).
He has executive oversight for: human resources, properties and services, staff development, the code of conduct for third-party service providers, PASS staff, and union matters.
Profile
Professor Nhlapo rejoined UCT as a deputy vice-chancellor in August 2004 from the South African Embassy in Washington DC, where he was the Deputy Chief of Mission. Previously, he had been a member of the law faculty at UCT from 1990, achieving the rank of professor in the Department of Private Law and head of department from 1994, before his appointment to the South African Law Reform Commission, where he served from 1996 to 2000.
Professor Nhlapo obtained his BA (Law) at the University of Botswana, Lesotho and Swaziland (Roma, Lesotho), and then went on to receive an LLB (Hons) from the University of Glasgow, and a DPhil from Oxford University in the UK. During his tenure in the law faculty at UCT he taught the law of persons, family law and African customary law, and was promoted to full professorship in 1995.
Prior to joining UCT, he was dean of the social science faculty at the University of Swaziland.
While working for the South African Law Reform Commission he chaired the project committee on customary law which produced a report on customary marriages, resulting in the Recognition of Customary Marriages Act passed by Parliament in 1998. He also chaired the technical committee on traditional leaders which advised the Constitutional Assembly in developing Chapter 12 of the present constitution.
Professor Nhlapo was also chair of the Commission on Traditional Leadership Disputes and Claims, and was appointed for this purpose in terms of legislation enacted in 2003.
Portfolio responsibilities relating to UCT strategic goals
- Internationalisation
- Afropolitan niche
Additional responsibilities and executive oversight
- Senior support and fulfilling the role of Acting Vice-Chancellor as required
- Human Resources
- Properties & Services
- Staff development
- Code of conduct for service providers
- PASS staff and union matters
Departments and individual reporting lines
- Executive Director - Human Resources
- Executive Director - Properties & Services
- Director - International Academic Programmes Office (IAPO)
- Project Manager in the Office of the Vice-Chancellor
Committee membership ('Ch' indicates chair responsibilities)
- University Human Resources Committee
- Honorary Professors Standing Committee (Ch)
- EU Consultative Forum (Co-Ch)
- Staff Development (Ch)
- PASS Forum (Ch)
- Senior (PASS) Staff Management Advisory Group (SSMAG) (Ch)
- Operations Management Advisory Group (Opsmag) (Ch)
- Senate Nominations Committee (Ch)
- Employee Relations Management Committee.
- USHEPiA Management Committee (Ch)
- Internationalisation Management Advisory Group (Ch)
- University Development Committee
Committees outside UCT
- USHEPiA Advisory Board
- USHEPiA International Steering Committee (Ch)
- Board of the Groote Schuur Community Improvement District (GSCID)
Professor Sandra Klopper
Deputy Vice-Chancellor
Professor Sandra Klopper, took office as deputy vice-chancellor on 1 January 2012. Her portfolio focusses on strategic issues, including teaching and learning; institutional size and shape; physical and academic planning; and graduate attributes.
Profile
Professor Klopper has an honours degree in art history (cum laude) from the University of the Witwatersrand, where she returned to write her PhD thesis, tracing the socio-political histories of various traditionalist art forms from present-day northern KwaZulu-Natal. She also has an MA in art and social reform from the University of East Anglia, UK. She lectured in art history at Wits from 1981 to 1988.
In 1989 Professor Klopper joined UCT as a lecturer specialising in African art, and was promoted first to senior lecturer, then to associate professor, before accepting an appointment at Stellenbosch University (SU) as head of visual arts in June 2001. She became vice-dean of Arts (drama, fine arts and music) at Stellenbosch in January 2006, and accepted an additional appointment as acting head of the music department in mid-2006. Prior to her UCT appointment as Deputy Vice-Chancellor at UCT, Professor Klopper was the Dean of Humanities at the University of Pretoria - from October 2008 to December 2011.
Professor Klopper helped spearhead curriculum development at UCT, Stellenbosch University and the University of Pretoria.
She has played an active role in various community projects and initiatives. For many years she was the treasurer of the Visual Arts Group (a subsidiary of the now defunct Cultural Workers Congress of the Western Cape). From 2003 to 2005 she chaired the committee formed by the Western Cape Government to commission the Peace Laureate sculpture project at the Victoria & Alfred Waterfront in Cape Town.
Along with this strong performance in management and leadership roles, Klopper is an accomplished academic with a B2 NRF rating. She has written extensively on the traditionalist art of southern African communities, including the expressive culture of migrant labourers and their families; African fashion, textiles and beadwork; various aspects of contemporary South African youth culture; and the work of several contemporary South African artists. She has published three books in collaboration with photographer Peter Magubane.
Portfolio responsibilities relating to UCT strategic goals
- Teaching and learning, and graduate attributes
- Institutional size and shape
Professor Klopper's portfolio includes executive oversight for:
- Teaching & Learning, including graduate attributes
- Planning
- Space Planning and physical infrastructure
- Information & Communication Technology Services
- UCT Libraries
Departments and individual reporting lines
- Executive Director - Information Communication Technology Services
- Executive Director - UCT Libraries
- Director - Institutional Planning Department
- Executive Director - Properties and Services (dotted line for space planning, timetabling, classroom facilities)
Committee membership ('Ch' indicates chair responsibilities)
- University Building & Development Committee
- Space Allocation Committee (Ch)
- Teaching Awards Sub-Committee (Ch)
- Distinguished Teachers' Award Sub-Committee (Ch)
- Timetable Sub-Committee (Teaching and Examinations)
- University Finance Committee
- Quality Assurance Committee (Ch)
- University Information and Communication Technology Committee (Ch)
- Academic Staff Development Committee (Ch)
- Adult Learning Sub-Committee(Ch)
- Programme Accreditation and Approval Sub-Committee (Ch)
- University Development Committee
Professor Crain Soudien
Deputy Vice-Chancellor
Professor Crain Soudien's portfolio is to support the Vice-Chancellor in the area of transformation and social responsiveness. His portfolio responsibilities related to the university strategic goals are transformation, and leading the University's attempt to address the major social challenges of the schools' crisis; safety and violence; and poverty and inequality.
He has executive oversight in the areas of social responsiveness; student affairs; the staff experience; and government and external relations.
Profile
Professor Soudien has been studying and writing on issues relating to education and transformation for the last 20 years, establishing himself as a recognised authority. He has penned more than 70 articles in refereed journals, as well as numerous book chapters, newspaper and magazine articles.
He is regularly invited to speak on these matters at universities and forums around the country. He has been consulted by institutions inside and outside the country on policies they are developing with respect to the issues of equality, racism and other forms of discrimination. In 2009 he chaired the Ministerial Review Committee into Transformation in Higher Education.
Professor Soudien was a student at UCT, earning his BA, BA (Honours) and MA in Comparative African Government and Law, and Higher Diploma of Education (Post Graduate) Secondary. He also holds a Bachelor of Education degree from the University of South Africa, and a Master's in Education and PhD from the State University of New York at Buffalo in the USA. He has received numerous awards during his career, including a Fulbright Scholarship; Visiting Scholarships to the University of Washington, the Institute of Development Studies in Sussex, and York University in Canada. He joined the faculty of the School of Education at UCT in 1988. He has been acting as Deputy Vice-Chancellor at UCT since April 2009.
Outside of UCT, Professor Soudien serves as a founding trustee and member of the District Six Museum Foundation; Chair of the Independent Examinations Board; board member of Krakadouw Trust; Director and Deputy Chair of the Cape Town Festival;Former President of the World Council of Comparative Education Societies; and on the Goedgedacht Forum for Social Reflection, The South African Canadian Studies Association and the Maskew Miller Longman Foundation.
Portfolio responsibilities relating to UCT strategic goals
- Transformation
- Addressing the crisis in public schools
- Safety and Violence Initiative
- Poverty & Inequality Initiative
- The first-year student experience
Additional responsibilities and executive oversight
- Social Responsiveness
- Student Affairs
- Government & External Relations
Departments and individual reporting lines
- Executive Director - Student Affairs
- Director - Transformation Services
- Director - Institutional Planning Department (dotted line for social responsiveness)
Committee membership ('Ch' indicates chair responsibilities)
- Institutional Forum (Co-Ch)
- Admissions Committee (Ch)
- Admissions Policy Review Task Team (Ch)
- University Transformation Committee
- Residences Committee (Ch)
- Sports Council
- Undergraduate Studies Funding Committee (Ch)
- University Social Responsiveness Committee (Ch)
- University Student Affairs Committee (Ch)
- College of Wardens
- Undergraduate Student Funding Committee (Ch)
- SHAWCO Board (Ch)
- Children's Institute Board
- University Development Committee
Committees outside UCT
- Cape Higher Education Consortium - Director
- Independent Examinations Board (Ch)
- Maths Science Education Project Board (Ch)
Professor Danie Visser
Deputy Vice-Chancellor
Professor Visser was appointed as DVC in January 2009. His portfolio is to advance research and graduate studies, and to oversee the academic affairs of the faculties.
Profile
Professor Visser is professor of private law at UCT and a recipient of a National Research Foundation A2 rating. His main work has been in the law of unjustified enrichment, comparative law and legal history. He has contributed to the creation of the comparative law of unjustified enrichment as an international field of study and has helped to foster an understanding of how legal systems that combine both English law and European civil law (such as South African and Scots law) can contribute to legal development in the rest of the world.
He studied at the University of Pretoria, from which he holds the degrees B.Iuris, LLB and LLD, and at the University of Leiden in the Netherlands, where he obtained a further doctorate in law. He has taught at UCT since 1984. He is a former dean of the Faculty of Law (1996-1998) and a sometime holder of the Huber C Hurst Eminent Visiting Scholar Chair at the University of Florida (2001) and was elected as an honorary professor in the University of Aberdeen for the period 2001-2006. From 2003 until taking up his present post as DVC, he was a visiting professor at the University of Melbourne, teaching comparative law on an annual basis. He was elected as an Alexander von Humboldt fellow on three occasions (1990, 1994 and 2004) and this allowed him to do research at the University of Tübingen and the University of Regensburg.
He was co-editor of the South African Law Journal from the end of 1999 until he took up his present post and he continues to serve on the boards of various scholarly journals. He has more than a 100 publications to his credit, including several books, of which Unjustified Enrichment (2008) counts as his most important contribution.
He is a member of the Academy of Science of South Africa and of the World Academy of Arts and Science, an associate member of the International Academy of Comparative Law and a Fellow of the University of Cape Town.
Portfolio: Research & Academic Affairs
Portfolio responsibilities relating to UCT strategic goals
- Research: profile, impact & engagement
- Advancing postgraduate studies
- Climate change & sustainable development initiative
Additional responsibilities and executive oversight
- Faculty affairs
- Academic staff & policy matters (UCT Academics' Union negotiations)
Departments and individual reporting lines
- Deans (7)
- Director of GSB
- Director Research Office
- Director Research Contracts & Intellectual Property Services
- Director Postgraduate Funding Office
Committee membership ('Ch' indicates chair responsibilities)
- University Research Committee (Ch)
- Postgraduate Studies Funding Committee (Ch)
- Doctoral Degrees Board (Ch)
- Deans Forum (Ch)
- Consultative Forum on Academic Staff Matters (Ch)
- Board for Graduate Studies (Ch)
- Joint Staff (clinical) Advisory Committee (Co-Ch)
- Ad hom promotions (all faculties)
- College of Fellows
- College of Fellows Young Researcher Award Committee (Ch)
- University Development Committee
- URC Committee on Research Reviews (Ch)
- IIDMM Management Board (Ch)
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Boards of Centres of Excellence:
- UCT/NRF/DST CoE in Catalysis (Ch)
- UCT/NRF/DST CoE in Birds as Keys to Biodiversity Conservation (Ch)
- Research Development Awards Committee (Ch)
- Academic Freedom Committee
- University ICT Committee
- Vera Davie Study & Research Bursary (Ch)
Committees outside UCT
- CAPRISA Advisory Board
- Children's Institute Advisory Board
- UCT/CSIR Steering Committee
- Iziko Museums Advisory Committee (Co-Ch)
- UCT Press Editorial Board
