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Vice Chancellor's message: Time of consolidation ahead
13 June 2012

Since our last e-newsletter in March 2012, I have accepted a second term as vice-chancellor. This reappointment (to 30 June 2018) is an invaluable opportunity to consolidate themes and initiatives I started three-and-a-half years ago, ideas I now hope to see through to maturity. Many are projects I mooted during my installation lecture in August 2008: an Afropolitan drive for the university, a more activist university, an innovative model for providing intellectual leadership in addressing social challenges, new transformation initiatives, and a new size and shape plan. (To read more, please click here.) In April I travelled to the US and Canada to attend the Global Colloquium of University Presidents at Columbia University, to host alumni events in the US and Canada, and to meet with foundations and possible donors in these centres for fundraising purposes.

The Global Colloquium of University Presidents is an invitation-only annual meeting of 25 university presidents/vice-chancellors from around the world, each of whom is accompanied by a faculty expert. The group meets to discuss topics of immediate concern to leaders in higher education and of particular interest to the Secretary-General of the United Nations and the international community.

UCT was the only South African university and one of only five African universities represented. This year's topic was Global Effects of the Youth Population Surge: Addressing the Needs of the Largest Generation of Young People the World has Ever Known. Following the global financial and economic crisis and with more recent developments on North Africa and the Middle East, youth issues and particularly youth unemployment, are at the top of national and international agendas. Professor Ingrid Woolard of the School of Economics accompanied me, and each of us submitted a memorandum on the topic of the youth bulge as it pertains to South Africa.

Thereafter I travelled to the east and west coasts of the US and to Canada to host alumni events in Vancouver, Calgary, Seattle, San Francisco, Palo Alto, Los Angeles and New York. My thanks go to Holly Lawrence, Regional Director of the UCT Fund, who accompanied me in the States, and to Di Stafford, UCT Canada regional Director, who joined me on the Canada leg.

It's always good to meet with UCT alumni and to discuss things that interest them: how their alma mater is performing globally, academic standards, and the politics of the country and its higher education sector. I trust this newsletter will give you a taste of UCT's successes.

I also met with foundations, donors and potential donors. With the goal of raising funds for UCT, it is useful to be able to discuss donors' future areas of support as well as those areas of synergy where these organisations may be interested in making a donation to a UCT project. You can learn more about UCT's projects and their fundraising needs here.