360 perspective2015 web spreads

ISSUE 3 • 2014/2015

PERSPECTIVES Magazine

A year of UWC excellence in review

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FOREWORD

The year 2014 was an exciting year for me, but also a sad one, as I bade farewell to UWC – a place I’ve called home for the past 13 years. I would like to thank all the staff and students of UWC who I’ve worked with over the years and would like to acknowledge their various contributions to making UWC what it is today – recognised as one of the top-tier universities in the country. But I’m confident I am leaving the University in capable hands. We welcome the new Vice-Chancellor, Professor Tyrone Pretorius (the 7th VC since the establishment of the University) and wish the new leadership team well as they take UWC to even greater heights.

The 360˚ Perspectives magazine for 2014 speaks to a wide audience of alumni, donors, current

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and prospective students, and the general public, showcasing various elements of the University – from alumni impacting on society to research conducted by our academics, and more importantly, what UWC means for our country and our continent.

Research, teaching and learning and innovation have been central to our Institutional Operating Plan for the five years to the end of 2014. One of UWC’s primary concerns for the future is to give effect to its mandate as a public university in a manner that critically engages with the range of challenges facing our nation.

The University conferred more than 100 PhDs in 2014. We also conferred master’s degrees on the first cohorts of students under the PetroSA

partnership, the nanotechnology programme, and the MSc in Regulatory Science programme in partnership with the University of Hibernia in Dublin.

One of the highlights of 2014 was the beginning of the upgrade to the UWC stadium. We solicit the support of our alumni, friends of UWC and potential donors to support us with this project which will not only assist the UWC student community, but the communities surrounding the University.

The University was graced with distinguished visitors from around the world, such as former President of Ireland, Dr Mary Robinson, who is part of the international group of thought leaders called The Elders, and US Ambassador to South Africa, Patrick Gaspard. We also received President Jacob Zuma, former President De Klerk, the Premier of the Western Cape Helen Zille and the Mayor of Cape Town Patricia de Lille.

During 2014 we celebrated and welcomed alumni from the 1980s, who played a significant role when the University was declared the University of the Left. Several alumni received high honours when the Chancellor of the University launched the Chancellor’s Awards.

The 2014 ceremony honoured eight alumni who have held the position of Vice-Chancellor at South African universities as well as bestowed a special recognition award on Professor Richard van der Ross.

The content of this publication highlights the widespread difference UWC made in 2014. Looking forward, 2015 is expected to be a year of excitement and celebration as the University celebrates its 55th Anniversary since its establishment.

I wish you all a good year – and happy reading.

Professor BP O’Connell Former Rector and Vice-Chancellor

Managing Editor: Luthando Tyhalibongo Production Editor: Nastasha Crow Editor: Nazeem Lowe Editorial: Myolisi Gophe Nicklaus Kruger Asiphe Nombewu Tashne Singh Aidan van den Heever Scruffy Dog Communications West Cape News Ilse Fredricks Aeysha Kassiem Images: Scruffy Dog Communications UWC Archives West Cape News Plein Productions Design: Banss Design Lab Printing: Shumani Print World

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CONTENTS Seen on campus

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SA needs a culture of knowledge

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Professor Bharuthram retires as DVC 9 Q&A with the new VC

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First nanoscience master’s graduates

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New MSc helps drug regulators First master’s students for Fuels Centre

Transforming corporate South Africa

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Graham Jenneker: Contestant in the corporate world

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SANBI tackles TB

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Rather board than bored

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Ruby shines in Asia

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A panoramic view born of experience Too much of a good thing...

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Chancellor lauds UWC leading alumni Early childhood development always evolving

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New centre to study food insecurity 16

UWC-SLCA building a culture of science

UWC still the greenest campus

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Developing law, locally and abroad 38

UWC transforming research

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PLAAS Fact Sheets

Maintaining a moral compass in business

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New Centre to explore spirituality in society

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‘80s Reunion Corporate Sponsors

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Badian Maasdorp: Embracing a pan-African perspective

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Dentists can detect child abuse

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Ruth performs quite a juggling act 62 Living the dream

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Dancing to the top

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Rising star aims for Olympics

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Freddie Muller shines in 2014

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Smeda is simply the best

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Rodwell’s road to Rio 2016

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Dream season despite studies

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UWC boxer’s career blooms

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Book reviews

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2014 In a nutshell

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Seen on campus 2

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1 South African jazz and Afro-pop artist Judith Sephuma entertains guests at the farewell function of Professor Brian O’Connell at the University of the Western Cape. 2 United Nations Special Envoy and former President of Ireland, Mary Robinson, spoke at the Annual Desmond Tutu Lecture at the University of the Western Cape in October 2014. 3 Former President FW de Klerk attended the Annual Desmond Tutu Lecture at the University of the Western Cape. 4 United States Ambassador Patrick Gaspard talking to students at the University of the Western Cape.

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5 Jimmy Nevis performing live at the University of the Western Cape student centre in February 2015. 6 President Zuma attended a Young Communist League of South Africa conference hosted at UWC in December 2014. 7 Cape Town Mayor Patricia de Lille attended the Annual Desmond Tutu Lecture. 8 Former Finance Minister Trevor Manuel at the Chancellor’s Dinner held in August 2014 at the University of the Western Cape.

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SA needs a culture of knowledge When Professor Brian O’Connell became Rector and Vice-Chancellor of the University of the Western Cape (UWC) 14 years ago, the institution was facing two “mega challenges”.

The University was “bankrupt” and owed the bank R140 million and plans were afoot to merge it with Peninsula Technikon.

O’Connell had the daunting task of shepherding UWC through this difficult period and he says he couldn’t have done it without deeply committed staff members and students.

He told staff that the University was going to have to work through the bankruptcy and sacrifices would have to be made.

“I wrote a letter, which was handed to all staff and students. I told them we must take great care with how we proceeded with trying to save our name and our history and that our success would depend as much on our behaviour as on the quality of our argument.

“I also said that we should speak to government and convince them that it would be the wrong message to send to the people of South Africa that those who were great in the struggle would be rewarded by losing their names and history. They couldn’t argue with that.”

The state paid the full debt and abandoned the merger.

“Without that moment there would be no UWC like it is today,” said O’Connell.

“We are now in the top 100 universities in the BRICS countries, according to the latest rankings and we have the fourth largest number of national research chairs in the country.”

O’Connell, a former head of education in the Western Cape, said the tragedy of being unable to

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Professor Bharuthram retires as DVC Professor Ramesh Bharuthram retired as Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Academic) following seven years at UWC and 45 years in higher education. He will, however, continue to assist the University in a new role at UWC as the executive director responsible for special projects. We asked him about the highlights of his tenure at UWC.

Retired UWC Rector Prof Brian O’Connell says South Africa is not putting out the message that education matters. build a strong knowledge culture in South Africa has put the nation in grave danger.

“Our culture is not amplifying the message that education matters. We’ve not given children a sense of why knowledge matters. We seem to think we can survive and flourish in this modern world without having a good education system.

“It is unfortunate that our children haven’t consistently been reared on the importance of schooling by the highest authorities in the country, our communities and our households.

“The messages are not passionate and until that message is constant and consistent from both the community and leaders we are not going to see significant improvements.”

Asked what he would be doing during his retirement he said: “I’m going to spend the rest of my life working with schools and in communities.

I would like to encourage them to take ownership, commit to hard work and develop the necessary competences and knowledge that we must have to survive.”

Q: What originally attracted you to UWC? In May 2007 I met with Prof Brian O’Connell. We had a fascinating conversation about the role of a university to address South Africa’s challenges.

He articulated his unique passion and vision of UWC, which was for UWC to move away from being known as just a historically disadvantaged university to becoming an institution nationally and internationally recognised for its scholarship.

I found this an attractive and exciting challenge.

Q: What was your mandate as DVC? As a historically disadvantaged university, UWC’s past focused mainly on the teaching aspects, unlike historically white universities where research was a major component. My role was to focus on both which meant I had a wide portfolio consisting of teaching and learning, research and innovation, community engagement, as well as information and communication technology. All of these portfolios were instrumental in growing the University.

Q: What are your top highlights at UWC? I would say the main highlight has been UWC’s growth on both a national and international level.

What is even more impressive is that this growth has been achieved with us having a low income base with one of the lowest fee structures in higher education in the country.

Outgoing Deputy Vice-Chancellor Ramesh Bharuthram to continue working on developing academic talent.

Q: What was the best part of working for UWC? To implement the many best practices I learnt over the years freely and with the support of Prof O’Connell and strategic roleplayers in the University. I also have an enormous passion for capacity development – mentoring and advising young academics as well as colleagues from the admin and support divisions, particularly from disadvantaged backgrounds, and opening doors for them.

Q: What are your future plans?

My passion for development goes beyond UWC. When I look at our bright academics, I don’t just see UWC graduates, I see the future leaders and innovators of our country. I plan to continue to utilise my knowledge and expertise by mentoring and harnessing academic talent for the development of our country.

Q: What are your future hopes for UWC? It is not so much hopes rather than confidence.

At first there was apprehension at Prof O’Connell and I departing at the same time, but having seen how Prof Tyrone Pretorius has engaged with the University community over the last three months, I am confident that he and his new Executive will not only protect the gains the institution has made but will improve upon them.

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Q&A with the new VC

What are you bringing to UWC from your experiences as President and Pro ViceChancellor of Monash University South Africa and Deputy Vice-Chancellor Academic at the University of Pretoria?

After leaving UWC I was privileged to be part of one of the most international universities, Monash University, with a physical presence on almost all continents of the world. I served Monash as President of the South African campus but also as part of the Senior Executive team in Melbourne and enjoyed the opportunity and privilege to contribute to the growth and development of such an impressive institution – slightly more than 50 years old (like UWC) and among the top universities in the world. Certainly I have gained some insights around the drivers of growth and excellence, insights that I hope will stand me in good stead.

I also had a short stint at the University of Pretoria – one of the biggest residential universities in South Africa with over 40 000 enrolments. Yet, despite its huge enrolments it is still one of the top research universities in South Africa and in fact produces on an annual basis most of the PhDs in South Africa.

At both Monash and Pretoria two things stand out for me: the central role of planning and the appropriate balancing of the mandates of teaching and research.

What is the biggest issue facing UWC and the higher education sector?

There are a number of issues facing the higher education sector. Possibly the rapidly growing

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access but even we are feeling the stress of the national student financing scheme.

I am also concerned with the next generation of scholars.

Universities all over the world are facing a crisis with respect to the ageing and retiring pool of academics and the challenge is to ensure sufficient young graduates choose and commit to academia as a career.

Where do you see the University in the next five years?

I plan to build on the great foundation set by my predecessors and take the University to even greater heights. I would like UWC to be rated among the most influential universities in the BRICS countries.

Universities that want to be recognised, that want to be seen as excellent, will contribute significantly to addressing the ‘grand challenges’ of our time. They will do so through the education of students that are equipped and prepared to tackle these challenges as well as through the development of basic and applied knowledge.

Not only will they respond to these challenges in their local context and community through their research and education, but they will develop strong international and intellectual links in the process of responding to the global challenges.

I would like to see UWC as one of those universities recognised and respected for its contribution to addressing these challenges. student population of over 20 000 students is one of the challenges I’ll face: how we as the University respond to the demands for more space, more resources and increased work pressure for staff because of the increase in the number of applicants and student population.

We have to remember that the higher education sector has limited resources and more and more students are matriculating each year which adds more pressure on the University’s intake.

Related to this is the issue of student financing which is a national issue. UWC has always been committed to ensuring affordable and equitable

UWC Rector and Vice-Chancellor Professor Tyrone Pretorius.

What are your other interests?

I’ve always been involved in sports, broadly speaking, and have a soft spot for soccer and cricket. I am a Buccaneer (Orlando Pirates supporter) and support one of the greatest teams in the world, Manchester United.

My love for sports has led to a very strong involvement in university sports nationally and I am currently President of USSA (the national federation of university sports) and Chair of the Board of University Sports Company, the commercial wing of university sports in South Africa.

I have seen the value of sports in university branding (think of Amatuks) and in recruitment and we all know the role it plays in nation building. I think it can and does play a very strong role in building a university community.

I also love music and in particular, jazz music.

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First nanoscience master’s graduates

Prof Dirk Knoesen (second from left), and team members Valencia Jamalie (second from right) and Chyril Abrahams (far right), helped students like Al Farao (far left), a member of the inaugural class in nanoscience, to make a success of their studies.

UWC conferred the first master’s in nanosciences degrees in March 2014.

The degree is the flagship programme of the National Nanoscience Postgraduate Teaching and Training Programme (NNPTTP) launched by the Department of Science and Technology (DST) at UWC in 2011. The NNPTTP involves four universities that had previously offered some training in nanosciences – UWC, Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University (NMMU), the University of the Free State (UFS) and the University of Johannesburg (UJ).

All students – 24 in 2014 – register at their home institutions for the degree, choosing from specialisations in nanochemistry, nanophysics or nanobiomedical science. Nine months are spent at UWC – where NMMU, UFS and UJ students register as ‘affiliated students’ – for the coursework component taught by lecturers from

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all four universities and collaborating institutions Mintek and the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR). The students then return to their home institutions to complete their theses.

A sophisticated online system allowed lecturers to deliver real-time distance learning to the UWC class.

“This programme serves as a model on how to collaborate,” says Professor Dirk Knoesen, who directs the central administration office, hosted at UWC. “These students, when they finish off, know the research group they come from; they know the researchers in that field at three other universities – and they know at least two international people who are also running nanosciences programmes,” says Knoesen. “So their network, when they finish off here, is typical of someone who’s just completed a PhD, or even better.”

NEW MSc HELPS DRUG REGULATORS The recent outbreak of Ebola highlighted some of the drug discovery and regulation issues in Africa that UWC’s new online MSc in Regulatory Sciences degree will help drug regulators to address.

Started in 2012, the programme – formally known as the MSc in Pharmacy Administration and Policy Regulation, specialising in Regulatory Sciences – saw its first graduates in 2014.

Although costly at €15 000, the two-year course is proving to be a drawcard to those in the drug development sector. It is the first online master’s degree in this area offered in Africa, thanks to a partnership between UWC and Hibernia College in Dublin, Ireland.

The online course targets professionals already working in the drug development sector or the pharmaceutical industry, who are keen to develop skills and obtain qualifications in the medicines regulation arena.

Pharmaceutical giants Pfizer, Novartis, Sanofi and Quintiles, as well as Harvard and Spain’s Innovation and Entrepreneurial Business School were involved in the development of the programme. UWC and medicines regulation experts in South Africa contributed material specific to South Africa. The degree is recognised

by South Africa’s Higher Education Quality Committee.

The course aims to cover the specifics of regulatory issues in the drug development and pharmaceutical industries in the BRICS countries although, says Professor Sarel Malan of UWC’s School of Pharmacy who, with colleague Professor Peter Eagles, has overseen the course from UWC’s side, “International processes for the registration of medicines are very similar. South African policies, for instance, are mostly based on

Professors Peter Eagles (left) and Sarel Malan have seen the MSc in Regulatory Sciences produce a new corps of drug development specialists in South Africa. the European policies. The programme [however] makes provision for a country-specific approach.”

“It is expected that many pharmaceutical regulators will enrol for this course, thus being able to help in the upliftment of the countries’ human capacity in the area of medicine registration,” agrees Prof Eagles.

Aadila Patel, who consults to pharmaceutical companies on regulation matters, was one of the first four UWC students to graduate from the programme in 2014.

The course offers the kind of in-depth training that is hard to come by in South Africa, says Patel, who particularly enjoyed the course’s access to European and US expertise.

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First master’s students for Fuels Centre Prof Masikana Mdleleni, PSFIC Director, with Thembekile Hoyi, one of the Centre’s first master’s graduates, outside one of the facility’s labs.

The PetroSA Synthetic Fuels Innovation Centre (PSFIC), opened at UWC in 2012, was a first-ofits-kind collaboration between UWC and PetroSA, which committed R36 million over the five years from 2010 to 2015 to the project (the agreement and funding have since been renewed).

A pilot-plant-size reactor had to be relocated from PetroSA’s Mossel Bay refinery to the PSFIC, which forms part of the University’s South African Institute for Advanced Materials Chemistry (SAIAMC). The reactor is used in the study of the conversion of olefins to distillates (COD), the core focus of the Centre’s research.

COD is a key technology in the gas-to-liquids (GTL) refinery process, in which natural gas and other gaseous compounds are converted into liquid hydrocarbons such as petroleum and diesel fuel. The COD process – which involves chemically combining compounds known as short-chain unsaturated hydrocarbons (such as propene) – produces a purer, cleaner and environmentally friendlier diesel.

In 2011, thanks to the PSFIC, PetroSA and UWC

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launched the first honours research projects and master’s programmes in the COD field.

The Centre’s first master’s graduates, Thembekile Hoyi and Megan van Ster, were capped at the March and September 2014 ceremonies, respectively. Both have now entered PetroSA’s Graduates in Training (GIT) programme, which offers PetroSA bursary holders two-year contracts.

“We feel a sense of satisfaction when these students graduate,” said Professor Masikana Mdleleni, PSFIC Director. “We can also see the difference in the students when they first come to us and when they leave – there’s been huge development in their knowledge and skills.”

Three honours students have also graduated from the PSFIC, while two master’s and one PhD student have joined the Centre’s ranks. The first PhD student, Ebrahim Mohiuddin, is expected to graduate in September 2015 alongside Londiwe Mthethwa, who will be finishing her master’s studies with the PSFIC.

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world

farms

cities people

food

New centre to study food insecurity The new DST-NRF Centre of Excellence in Food Security – the country’s first Centre of Excellence (CoE) to be hosted at a historically black university – was launched at UWC in April 2014.

According to Professor Julian May, the world produces more than enough food to feed the planet’s current population. Studies suggest that the world produces around 4,500 calories per person per day but that 1,900 calories per person go to waste. On a heathy diet, an average man needs 2,500 calories and an average woman 2,000 calories daily.

In South Africa alone, May said, some 20% of food is wasted in the processing stage. May’s own research suggests that 12.6% of the South African population do not have food security – defined as ‘access to sufficient, safe, nutritious food to maintain a healthy and active life’, while another 8.9% are vulnerable.

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“An incredible amount of food is wasted yet we face a double burden of malnutrition [food insecurity] and obesity,” May said.

That paradox is one of the issues that May, director of the Institute for Social Development at UWC, and others will tackle under the umbrella of the new Centre of Excellence in Food Security, backed by the Department of Science and Technology (DST) and the National Research Foundation (NRF).

The CoE is a virtual centre hosted by UWC in partnership with the University of Pretoria (UP). Experts from 20 organisations in South Africa, Australia and the USA, including some 120 researchers, are expected to be involved in research.

May will serve as director of the CoE, with codirector, Prof Sheryl Hendriks, acting as node head at the University of Pretoria. UWC and UP

had both submitted applications to host the CoE, and were encouraged to collaborate.

The Centre’s goal will be to conduct research, build capacity and disseminate findings that will promote a sustainable food system in South Africa. It will study the global and national food system; identify the country’s ‘food insecurity’ and their food choices, strategies and opportunities; and pinpoint the policies, technologies, interventions and products that could improve access to affordable and nutritious food.

“The new CoE creates an exciting opportunity for researchers to make a meaningful difference to solving some of the complex problems regarding poverty, hunger and inequality,” said Hendriks at the launch.

The scale of the problem is daunting.

“There are millions of livelihoods involved

in the production, processing, distribution, preparation and disposal of food,” May explained in a recent article. “Efforts to bring about food security must address the food system as a whole.”

To do that, the Centre has to take a multidisciplinary approach, including researchers from disciplines as diverse as anthropology, political science and even packaging science.

Some research will focus on income and the purchase of sufficient calories and nutrients. Others will take a bigger-picture view, looking at a country or region’s ability to provide affordable food to its population.

There will also be micro-studies that will explore the choices that individuals make – choices that can, for example, increase the risk of non-communicable disease.

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UWC still THE greenest campus In a world facing climate change, energy shortages, habitat destruction and pollution, it has become important for universities to serve as role models for greening and sustainability.

UWC’s contribution was acknowledged at the 2014 Association of College and University Housing Officers International (ACUHO-I) Southern Africa Chapter African Green Campus Initiative conference, held at Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University from 29 June to 4 July 2014. UWC was chosen as the greenest campus for 2014, receiving the overall Outstanding Award for an Advanced University (the University was also selected national Green Campus of the Year in 2012, the inaugural year of the GCI conference).

Universities were assessed on energy efficiency, water conservation, biodiversity and nature reserves, green buildings, green purchasing, green programming, waste reduction and recycling, green leadership and innovation.

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“UWC management, service providers, media and students have once again proven that, working together, we can move our campus into the future,” says UWC Green Team Leader and Residential Services Officer, Njabulo Maphumulo.

UWC’s Green Campus Initiative involves over 2 000 student volunteers in campus clean-ups, creating vegetable and indigenous gardens at residences, participating in formal green talks and debates and hosting green/dark religious services (to raise awareness of saving electricity).

“As a tertiary education institution, we have a responsibility to lead through example,” said Saudiqa Yasin, Manager: Contracts & Procurement at UWC’s Department of Infrastructure & Engineering. “How can we advocate to be among the forerunners in education, developing future responsible leaders and captains of industry and innovation without fully incorporating best practice and actively working towards reducing our carbon footprint?”

Aside from the efforts and green activities of the students, the University has itself incorporated a range of green intiatives at the main campus.

UWC’s nature reserve, alongside the main campus, conserves the endangered Cape Flats Dune Strandveld and the critically endangered Cape Flats Sand Fynbos. Students are actively involved in managing the reserve, eradicating alien vegetation and maintaining fire breaks. Staff educate the public about the biological treasures in the reserve.

For the last few months, the reserve has been receiving about 25% of its power from a prototype hydrogen fuel cell (HFC) generator built and installed by Hydrogen South Africa Systems Integration and Technology Validation Centre (HySA Systems), a project based at UWC. HFC technology is pollution-free – the only emission is water!

The UWC Recycling Initiative recycles an average of 70 tons of recyclables each month, creating employment opportunities for 120 people. It also sells the recycled materials to recycling companies. It has been estimated that over the past four years, the UWC Recycling Initiative has been able to reduce UWC’s annual CO2 emissions by about 840 tons.

The Environmental Education and Resources Unit hosts ongoing environmental awareness and education training workshops for the community on the benefits of indigenous plants.

The feral cats on campus are cared for, and provide a natural means of pest control.

Tree stumps are chipped and used to mulch flower beds and pathways on campus.

Energy-efficient Compact Fluorescent Light bulbs are used (CFLs use 75% less energy than conventional incandescent light bulbs).

The University uses suppliers who employ sustainable practices.

Many UWC academic courses examine the importance of sustainability.

This year will see the launch of the Green Ambassador Programme, which will assist with peer advocacy, creating ongoing awareness and education platforms to take us to the next level.

Young Environmental Africans This organisation grew out of a multidisciplinary course, Environmental and Sustainability Studies. It aims to emphasise the concept of green citizenry and green consciousness, encouraging public engagement and participation in environmental issues.

YEA promotes environmental education and action across all faculties. In 2014, Geography students conducted a survey across campus, and hosted the first ever Greener Grass Conference/ Summit, bringing together student groups interested in debating sustainability and environmental awareness. The students also found time to engage in educational and practical community outreach.

“YEA is just a few young people trying to make a lasting change for the betterment of all,” says Usomeleze Fitoli, YEA President for 2014. “We promote the protection of the environment not only for its aesthetic value, but for its ability to sustainably improve lives – both now and in the future.”

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UWC transforming research Around the mid-2000s, the University set out to redefine and rebrand itself as one of South Africa’s leading research universities.

In 2008 when now-retired Deputy Vice-Chancellor for academic affairs, Professor Ramesh Bharuthram, was appointed, UWC’s main focus was still on teaching.

However, soon after he joined, the University began developing its five-year Institutional Operational Plan (IOP) for 2010–2014. Among its eight institutional goals, was ‘Goal 3’, a focus on research and innovation.

“The IOP articulated the need for UWC to identify emerging and established research niche areas that would not only contribute to high output in the form of research publications and graduating master’s and doctoral students, but equally importantly give the University a set of distinctions that would set UWC apart from the other higher education institutions – a calculated move towards becoming a research-intensive university,” Bharuthram explains.

The transformation was achieved within just seven years, during which the University grew its research infrastructure to include seven faculty deans and 10 unit directors and strengthened the writing of research and funding proposals (an unsung but vital element in the development of research capacity and resources for teaching and learning). Among the many other markers of transformation in research capacity were: • The establishment of a Centre for Green Nanotechnology.

• A significant increase in the number of research collaborations and agreements with international universities.

• Nearly doubling the number of NRF-rated researchers (about 105) and the research output (publications) since 2006.

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• Launching a development programme for research staff (the University now ranks in the top five for the number of academics with PhDs in South Africa. The University also features among the top seven when ranked for research output per scholar).

• Hosting a number of national research facilities, including, since 2014, the Centre of Excellence in Food Security, and hosting the new national master’s programme in nanotechnology.

• The award by the National Research Foundation of seven research chairs to UWC under the South African Research Chairs Initiative (SARChI), the most made to a single university in that cycle, bringing the University’s number of SARChI chairs to eleven.

But perhaps the most visible evidence of UWC’s development as a research institution are the two new science buildings – the Life Sciences Building (officially opened in 2011), and the Chemistry Building (first occupied in 2014).

What made these achievements all the more remarkable was that they were earned on merit, and in open competition with well resourced, historically advantaged universities.

“I believe in life you must always strive for excellence and we must always show commitment and always hold people accountable,” he says.

Bharuthram confidently predicts that the new executive – a new Vice-Chancellor and two new Deputy Vice-Chancellors – will continue that commitment to research at the University. “I’m confident that this management, with the support of the faculties and researchers, will take this University to even greater heights.”

A significant increase in the number of research collaborations and agreements with international universities.

Hosting a number of national research facilities, including, since 2014, the Centre of Excellence in Food Security, and hosting the new national master’s programme in nanotechnology.

Nearly doubling the number of NRFrated researchers (about 105) and the research output (publications) since 2006.

Launching a development programme for research staff (the University now ranks in the top five for the number of academics with PhDs in South Africa. The University also features among the top seven when ranked for research output per scholar).

The establishment of a Centre for Green Nanotechnology.

The award by the National Research Foundation of seven research chairs to UWC under the South African Research Chairs Initiative (SARChI), the most made to a single university in that cycle, bringing the University’s number of SARChI chairs to eleven.

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transforming corporate South Africa

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Zinzi Mgolodela started working in corporate transformation at the right time, just as South Africa entered its democratic era and companies were reevaluating how they do business. Since then she has helped shape transformation and corporate social investment (CSI) at some of the country’s biggest companies.

Zinzi Mgolodela got a taste for the corporate world while still working on her BCom Honours at UWC – she finished her BCom at the University in 1993 – thanks to the course including real world experiences to augment the lectures. In 1994, Mgolodela ended up doing a paper on affirmative action at the Foschini Group, inspired by lectures from a senior executive from the company.

“It was what fascinated me about UWC,” she says. “The way they taught really opened up my mind to the issues that businesses in South Africa had to grapple with. We did more work from the Mail & Guardian than we did from the books.”

That academic introduction to Foschini led to Mgolodela’s appointment at the company as a trainee merchandiser a year later. Her stay was short, in part because she felt the company was still struggling to adapt its marketing principles to the (now) broader South African marketplace.

She joined Old Mutual’s graduate training programme, which exposed her to all facets of the company. Training done, she moved into and, later, took over the marketing of the company’s new range of insurance products which accommodated HIV and Aids. It allowed Mgolodela to assist a hitherto overlooked

segment of the population, and also introduced her to the field of employee wellbeing, which was included in the Old Mutual initiative.

Mgolodela found she had discovered her niche – corporate social responsibility. “I think my studies, particularly my honours degree, encouraged me to always have a social slant to the way I looked at business,” she says.

Over the next few years Mgolodela helped rewrite the pre-test counselling form for Old Mutual and the entire insurance industry. She was involved in advocacy and in the HIV and Aids aspects of the Old Mutual Foundation, which manages the company’s social responsibility activities.

Her business studies won her the respect of colleagues because she could speak the language of commerce.

“I could link whatever I was doing to ROI [return on investments] and the bottom line,” says Mgolodela, “which you have to do otherwise you’re seen as completely socialist.”

After six years at Old Mutual, Mgolodela joined Metropolitan as Manager: CSI, Sponsorship, HIV and Aids and Empowerment Communications in 2001. There she helped shape the CSI strategy of the company. “The company had to ask itself what kind of business it’s in, and what kind of CSI would – in 20 years – sustain the company’s business.”

When discussions started on the closure of the CSI unit within the company – with the option of staying on to run marketing for Metropolitan’s

empowerment programme – Mgolodela chose to join Woolworths, after reflecting on the implications of working outside the insurance sector for the first time.

“I had to ask myself – was my career financial services, or was my career the issues that I deal with,” she recalls. “So I redefined myself as an issue manager. Give me any social issue within a business, and I’ll drive it.”

At Woolworths, which she joined as a CSI specialist in 2004, Mgolodela quickly made her mark, developing the company’s CSI strategy.

Six months after she started, Woolworths established a BEE Transformation Office headed

by Mgolodela.

The position requires her to manage or give input on seven components of the company’s BEE framework, including equity ownership, management diversity, employment equity, skills development, procurement and CSI. Mgolodela says her decade-long tenure at Woolworths has something to do with the company culture, and the difference she can make.

“I know I have made a contribution to the economic transformation of the country. I have an opportunity through my job to touch lives, through CSI, through EE, through procurement. I’ve seen small black business grow in front of my eyes.”

There is some personal reward as well. If, when they enter the workplace, her three children’s experiences are better than hers were, she feels she will have the satisfaction of knowing she helped achieve that.

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SANBI tackles TB UWC’s Southern African National Bioinformatics Institute (SANBI) – the research institute devoted to bioinformatics (also known as computational biology) – was awarded a South African Medical Research Council (MRC) flagship project, the Comprehensive Bacterial Analytical Toolkit for Tuberculosis (COMBAT-TB), in November 2013.

The project grant, amounting to R8.5 million over three years, was awarded after a rigorous international review.

Led by Professor Alan Christoffels, SANBI Director and also the SARChI Chair for Bioinformatics and Health Genomics, researchers at the Institute apply advanced mathematical and computing techniques to biological systems to detect patterns and run complex tests.

Tuberculosis (TB) is an infectious disease caused by the bacterium Mycoplasma tuberculosis, and multi-drug-resistant strains are a serious threat to health in South Africa. The project is intended to investigate the interaction between the human host’s immune system and the pathogen, to explore factors affecting infection outcome.

The SANBI researchers conduct their work alongside researchers at Tygerberg Medical Campus – the medical school has access to the clinical data, and SANBI provides the analytical expertise to crunch the numbers.

“Our collaborators have sequence data for hundreds of TB bacteria,” explains Christoffels.

“They share it with us, and we have to stitch all this data together.”

The end result of this work is to identify genetic signals in the bacteria that can explain why antibiotics are not working – resulting in a better understanding of TB and possibly enhancing the effectiveness of TB drugs.

But it will also result in the development of research infrastructure that can help other researchers conduct cutting-edge research. “Not everybody can be a computational biologist,” says Christoffels. “So currently we’re trying to build a web interface that allows other biologists to do the same things we’re doing. We’re hiding the complexity of the computer programming behind the internet browser, and bringing bioinformatics to the masses.”

Developing these kinds of computer tools can have a significant impact on the African continent,

where laboratories are often resource-limited. An integrated knowledge management system like this would allow researchers to interrogate and interpret their own in-house data.

“SANBI has been an example to other bioinformatics labs on the African continent.

African researchers can and do lead the way in international scientific endeavours. With the right tools, scientists on this continent can do great things,” says Prof Christoffels.

For more general information about SANBI, visit the website at www.sanbi.ac.za, contact the SANBI offices at 021 959 3645 or email info@sanbi.ac.za.

SANBI was established in 1996, when Prof Winston Hide introduced bioinformatics to South Africa. The Institute has made many advances in this fascinating field.

• SANBI researchers provide bioinformatics research to support the Southern African Human Genome Project.

• SANBI participates in the “Human Heredity and Health” Project, an international working group developing policy guidelines for the US National Institutes of Health.

The group has been funded to support the development of a biobank at Tygerberg Medical Campus.

• SANBI researchers worked with 40 institutions across 12 countries (including Harvard University and MIT) to decode the genome of the African coelacanth and joined the International Glossina Genome Initiative to obtain the 366 million base pair genome sequence of the tsetse fly (the tsetse fly’s genome is about a tenth the size of a human’s).

• In 2014, the institute secured three multi-million Rand grants from the MRC, with Prof Christoffels acting as principal investigator, along with Drs Simon Travers and Junaid Gamieldien.

• Christoffels recently received a silver award from the MRC for developing 11 PhD and 10 MSc students.

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A panoramic view born of experience Dr Razeena Omar, the CEO of CapeNature since January 2014, started her career modestly, as a teacher rather than a conservationist, which to her is a more logical career trajectory than some might imagine.

Her office overlooks a wide slice of the Cape Flats with views of Langa, Bonteheuwel, Heideveld, Welcome Estate, Rylands and Bridgetown.

Hardly an environment that resonates with nature conservation, but it is very familiar ground for Omar. She grew up in Newclare in Johannesburg, but lived in Mitchell’s Plain while she did her BSc (1979), BSc Honours in Zoology (1980) and Higher Diploma in Education (1982) at UWC. She taught in Lansdowne for a few years, before joining Hewat College as a lecturer in 1987.

During her 10 years at Hewat, she completed a Bachelor of Education at UCT, her MPhil at UWC and her doctoral studies through Rhodes.

Besides giving her the opportunity to study part-time, Hewat also gave Omar a sense of

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her calling. She worked in science, biology and mathematics education, and loved nothing more than taking trainee teachers “into nature” for field work, all the more so because it was a very difficult time for the country. “We would come from wherever we lived in the townships and we would go out into nature and enjoy the open spaces,” says Omar, “and in return nature would give us hope and rejuvenate us.”

That fusion of science and education would eventually steer her into conservation work.

In 1997, she left Hewat to join the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), as it is now known, as the organisation’s manager for community conservation. The overlap between conservation and community education would become a trend, says Omar.

“You would always see a people or a community angle, which became a thread throughout my career.”

At the WWF-SA she started interacting with Kader Asmal, as Minister of Water Affairs and Forestry responsible for the state’s Working for Water programme, which aimed to remove invasive alien plants while providing social services and rural employment. When he became Minister of Education in 1999, he invited Omar to join him as an environmental adviser, and also as the director of the National Environmental Education Programme (NEEP) in the ministry.

During this time she advised him, in particular, on the issue of finding a place for environmental education in schools.

“We wanted to make sure that the environment was a core component in the curriculum, from Grade R right into high school,” she says.

Omar left the ministry in 2003 to join South African National Parks, or SANParks. Her mandate as executive director for People and

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Conservation was to establish this theme as one of SANParks’ three pillars (alongside conservation and tourism). She also had to help draft and implement new policies, ensuring that communities had a say in conservation. “It was about crafting a future for SANParks,” says Omar, “so it was a rough five years.”

In 2008, she was appointed as Chief Director: Integrated Coastal Management for the Department of Environmental Affairs (Oceans and Coasts). Here she had to oversee “getting the legislation right” for the country’s 3 000km coastline, until then poorly managed and often unregulated.

In January 2014, Omar took on a new challenge as CEO of CapeNature, the public institution tasked with overseeing biodiversity conservation as part of a sustainable economy in the Western Cape. Which is where the view from her office – in a green building, it must be said – takes on metaphorical dimensions. The Cape Flats may be immediately around her, but there is also a stunning view of Table Mountain.

“It’s a beautiful space, and it’s a reminder of who we’re working for,” Omar says. “We need to ensure that the environment is there for generations to come, and is of use to these communities.”

Looking back at where it all started in the late 1970s, the pieces have fallen into place for her, says Omar, noting that she also serves on the boards of the National Botanical Institute, the Lotteries Board Distribution Agency and the Earth Charter International Council.

“Every position has contributed to getting me to where I am – nothing has been lost,” she says. “From staying on campus for 24 hours to watch an experiment to managing the coasts to ensuring that policies are in place. I’m using every bit of lived experience [acquired]over the years.”

TOO MUCH OF A GOOD THING...

UWC’s School of Public Health participated in the Prospective Urban Rural Epidemiology (PURE) study, a large, prospective cohort study involving 17 low, middle and high-income countries. The purpose of the study was to investigate “the association of estimated sodium and potassium excretion with the risk of death and cardiovascular events.”

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The PURE study found that most people consumed around 4g of salt per day, far exceeding the World Health Organisation’s guideline daily intake of 2g (South Africans consume as much as 7g of salt per day). A very high salt intake has been linked to high blood pressure, strokes and heart attacks.

Data collection for the PURE study involved analyses of sodium and potassium intake as determined by urinary excretion. Samples were taken from 102 000 persons in rural and urban communities in participating countries.

UWC Professor Thandi Puoane, one of two South African researchers involved in the global study (North West and Cape Town), collected data from Langa, Cape Town, as an urban site, and Mount Frere in the Eastern Cape as the rural site.

“My research has shown that poor people often say ‘we eat porridge and salt because we have nothing else to eat’,” reported Prof Puoane. “The basic fact is that these people may consume too much salt, which is dangerous. They do not eat enough fruit and vegetables which are high in potassium, to help lower the risk of developing cardiovascular diseases.”

Interestingly, the study also found that it is not only those who consume large amounts of salt who are more at risk of developing cardiovascular diseases but that people who consume less or no salt were also at increased risk of developing cardiovascular diseases.

The main conclusion of the study was that an estimated sodium intake between 3g and 6g per

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day was associated with a lower risk of death and cardiovascular events than either a higher or lower estimated level of sodium intake.

The findings of the PURE study were published in the 14 August 2014 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.

The PURE study is just one of many that the School of Public Health (SoPH) is involved in.

Internationally, the SoPH is also part of the Centre of Excellence for Chronic Disease Control in Africa (CDIA), established as a collaborative network of staff from the University of Cape Town, UWC, Stellenbosch and Harvard Universities, the Medical Research Council (MRC), the Western Cape Government, and the Tanzanian Ministry of Health and Social Welfare and Shree Hindu Mandal Hospital in Tanzania.

The SoPH has been engaged in research on Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs) since 2002.

NCDs are non-infectious and non-transmissible diseases which predominantly arise out of unhealthy lifestyle behaviours such as smoking, drinking, unhealthy nutrition and lack of exercise, and are preventable (NCDs claim as many as 36 million lives each year, with 80% of these deaths occuring in low to upper-middle-income countries such as South Africa).

The SoPH also works on the intervention aspects of NCDs, and is involved in numerous programmes to educate people about adopting healthier lifestyles, and collecting and disseminating information among communities.

Chancellor lauds UWC leading alumni

On Thursday, 28 August 2014, the Chancellor, The Most Revd Archbishop Thabo Makgoba, hosted the first University of the Western Cape Chancellor’s Awards in the Great Hall on campus.

The Chancellor’s Outstanding Alumnus Award is presented to alumni who have made outstanding contributions in their fields of study and to nation building. Recipients receive a gold lapel pin, a

UWC blazer and a plaque of recognition.

Awards were presented (two posthumously) to eight outstanding alumni who served as Rectors and Vice-Chancellors at South African universities.

Archbishop Makgoba said at the event:“Each of these Vice-Chancellors has made a significant contribution to the institutions they served or are serving, and to the wider academic community

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and South Africa as a whole. Their contributions to higher education cannot go unnoticed. And so, for their service, we salute Professors Brian Figaji (Cape Peninsula University of Technology), Jonathan Jansen (University of Free State), Nicholas Morgan (University of Transkei and Walter Sisulu University), Brian O’Connell (University of the Western Cape), Franklin Sonn (Peninsula Technikon) and Derrick Swartz (University of Fort Hare and Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University). And, in memoriam, we salute the late – and great – Professor Russel Botman (Stellenbosch University) and Professor Jakes Gerwel (University of the Western Cape).”

In a particularly emotional moment of the evening, a special recognition award was given to former Rector Professor Richard van der Ross, who was in attendance, for his significant contribution to the University.

From 2015 onwards, the Chancellor’s Outstanding Alumnus Awards will be based on nominations per faculty, with each of the seven faculties at UWC recognising its outstanding alumnus.

The plaque of recognition uses the motif of the African continent to symbolise the role that UWC graduates should play in bringing about hope and change in Africa. The design echoes the concept of the African Renaissance, and the notion of African cultural, scientific and economic renewal.

The protea, a significant part of the UWC coat of arms, can be seen on the pin, plaque and blazer.

The protea has symbolic meaning for UWC as it is endemic to the Western Cape and is also a national symbol. The protea symbolises wisdom, diversity, courage and transformation – the traits of an outstanding alumnus.

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Early childhood development always evolving (From left) Mrs Beryl Botman, UWC Chancellor, Archbishop Thabo Makgoba, and event MC, Africa Melane. Mrs Botman accepted the award on behalf of her late husband, former Rector and Vice-Chancellor of Stellenbosch University, Prof Russell Botman.

UWC Chancellor, Archbishop Thabo Makgoba, signs the Outstanding Alumnus Awards.

UWC alumni who all served as Rectors and Vice-Chancellors of South African universities were honoured at the inaugural Chancellor’s Dinner and Outstanding Alumnus Awards.

Relocating to another province can involve disruption of careers, social alienation and the stress of coping with unfamiliar surroundings and people. Alumna Marie-Louise Samuels recalls how she spent several months in 1997 missing Cape Town, unemployed, bored and frustrated, even sitting on the stoep crying.

She had just moved to Pretoria with her very young children, following her husband who a few years earlier had joined the team to establish the South African Qualifications Authority (SAQA).

Samuels hadn’t been keen on the relocation to Gauteng, but moved to Pretoria when the strain of managing a long-distance family began to take its toll.

With a wealth of experience in education, not working added to her frustrations. Samuels had been a teacher for 13 years at the Dominican School for the Deaf in Wittebome, a youth worker in the Archdiocese of Cape Town, a parttime worker for the Catholic Justice and Peace Committee, and then, for six years, principal of the Battswood Educare Centre, developing educational programmes for three to six-yearolds from disadvantaged communities. Having completed her teacher training in 1970, she completed a part-time BA at UWC in 1992.

Serendipitously, the Department of Education in Pretoria needed someone to manage the implementation of a national Early Childhood Development (ECD) pilot project. She jumped at the opportunity, thinking it would, if nothing else, keep her busy until 2000, when her husband was expected to finish a five-year secondment and the family could return to Cape Town.

However, after two years on the project, Samuels was appointed as deputy director of a European Union Technical Support team that managed a nation-wide audit of ECD in South Africa, a job that included providing ongoing support to the DoE’s ECD activities (the Department of Basic Education (DBE) subsequently took over the programme).

Then in 2000, Samuels accepted the directorship of the ECD programme, which was in full swing.

Fifteen years later Samuels is still in Pretoria, and still a Director for ECD in the DBE. She has also acted as Chief Director: Curriculum

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Implementation and Monitoring a few times over the years (her husband, alumnus Joe Samuels, has been CEO of the South African Qualifications Authority since 2012).

It is the challenges of ECD that keeps her in Pretoria, she says.

Among her tasks is overseeing Takalani Sesame, the children’s television programme that is also a major ECD initiative. She works closely with provinces on the primary and preschool curricula.

She is also involved with a UNICEF task team that is experimenting with an assortment of digital tools that they want to deploy to communicate with the public and those in the ECD sector.

“Looking back I cannot believe how much we have achieved since democracy 20 years ago, including the nationwide ECD Audit; White Paper 5 on Early Childhood Education; the introduction of an additional year to the schooling system – Grade R has grown from about 125 000 learners in 2002 to more than 800 000 learners in 2013; and very recently the National Curriculum Framework for children from birth to four,” says Samuels.

The ECD field is constantly evolving. “What we thought we knew about childhood development then isn’t what we know today,” Samuels says.

There has been an explosion of knowledge

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about how children learn, the importance of the first three years of life, even what happens prebirth. Children come into schools “with deficits” – or disadvantages – over which the schooling system has little control, but to which it has to be adaptable.

“It’s a process of ongoing learning for all of us, but I am excited about the potential of children, and what we need to do to ensure that we allow them to reach their potential,” says Samuels. “And it’s about saying, if that is the context of children in this country, how do we develop policies that speak to those realities?”

Challenges like these have helped Samuels to accept the Jacaranda City as home. She still has plans to return to Cape Town, but when that will be she is not sure.

And the days of crying on the stoep are long gone.

Grade R has grown from 125 000 learners in 2002 to more than 800 000 learners in 2013.”

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Professor Shaheed Hartley, the Director of the Science Learning Centre for Africa at the University of the Western Cape, in his office.

UWC-SLCA BUILDING A CULTURE OF SCIENCE Professor Shaheed Hartley believes that the practical experimental aspect of teaching and learning sciences is very important, if learners are to be encouraged to love science. Learners need to be fascinated by the subject and be introduced to the daily application of science.

“The important element in building the culture of science is to excite the learners and provide the teachers with skills and different ways of teaching content,” he said during an interview with the Media team.

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The Science Learning Centre for Africa (UWCSLCA) was established in 2009 and under the leadership of Prof Hartley, managed to build 25 school laboratories in the Western Cape with the help of Garden Cities Archway Foundation.

The science learning centres were given to schools that have shown commitment and consistency in the UWC-SLCA science educators training programmes and also schools which entered their learners in the SLCA projects.

Another criterion for selection is the effort made by educators to ensure that learners produce outstanding results.

The SLCA converts an existing classroom into a modern science learning centre at each of the selected primary and secondary schools. Prof Hartley said one of his 2014 highlights was penetrating the Eastern Cape and seeing a total of 28 Science teachers register and finish their BEd Honours in science education, with the SLCA team conducting contact sessions with the teachers in Mthatha.

“One of the things I want to achieve in 2015 is to build at least two science labs in the Eastern Cape and hopefully go on to other schools and get them involved in interesting science competitions.”

The SLCA, in collaboration with the Maths, Science and Technology Unit of the Eastern Cape Education Department, hosted the provincial conference of the South African Association of Science and Technology Educators (SAASTE) on 3 and 4 October 2014 at Trinset Education College

in Mthatha, where all 28 BEd students presented their research projects.

The SLCA was selected as the preferred service provider to conduct upgrading short courses for Science and Maths teachers in the Northern Cape. The project was funded by ETDP SETA and conducted in partnership with the Teacher Development Unit of the Northern Cape Education Department.

National Science Week, in partnership with the national Department of Science and Technology (DST), took place from 2 to 9 August 2014 and was a major success. The DST contracted the SLCA to conduct science and technology promotion and development activities in the Western Cape.

The SLCA also hosted the Women in Mathematics Mini-convention in Cape Town in Women’s Month, where female speakers who are professionals in the Science and Maths industry encouraged young females to take up careers in science.

The role models at the Women in Mathematics Mini-convention were Professor Zubeida Desai (Dean: Education, UWC); Dr Beverley Damonse, Group Executive: National Research Foundation; Dr Bonita de Swardt, Project Officer: Human Capacity Development, Square Kilometre Array (SKA); Ms Neo Malete, Intermediate Actuarial Specialist, Old Mutual; Ms Fatima Jakoet, SAA pilot and CEO of Sakhikamva Foundation; and Dr Phethiwe Matutu, Chief Director: Human Capital and Science Promotion, DST.

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Developing law, locally and abroad Last year Professor Nico Steytler, who is the South African Research Chair in Multi-level Government, Law and Policy based at the Community Law Centre (CLC), was appointed by the United Nations Department of Political Affairs as a short-term technical expert to support Yemen’s Constitution Drafting Committee.

Prof Steytler’s appointment came in the wake of internecine conflict and the conclusion of the internationally supported National Dialogue Outcomes in January 2014.

Prof Steytler travelled to Sana’a, Yemen, in July to advise on levels of government and the division of powers among them, the judiciary in a multi-level system of government and the national executive.

The constitution is expected to be put to a referendum this year following its adoption by the commission overseeing the work.

Locally, the CLC made a submission to Parliament on the Women Empowerment and Gender Equality Bill, which was adopted by the National Assembly in March last year.

While the CLC supported the bill’s intention to improve circumstances for women’s empowerment and gender equality, as well as certain other provisions, the CLC’s Parliamentary Programme researchers believed the bill was “generally weak and unfocused; aspects duplicated existing legislation and policy; it failed to address certain important issues not currently addressed in law or policy; it was vague on key points; and failed to include sufficient measures to facilitate its implementation”.

The CLC also argued that the bill failed to “effectively engage with the issue of weak implementation of existing laws” and, did not give enough weight to input from women across South Africa – the people most affected by inequality and disempowerment.

The CLC concluded that the bill as it stood would not materially improve the circumstances of women any more

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than the laws, policies and programmes already put in place as the “entrenched value systems of male entitlement and superiority that underpin women’s experiences of discrimination, exclusion and disempowerment” across South African society would remain unchallenged.

Also showing that merely passing legislation did not necessarily solve a problem, CLC Multi-Level Government researcher Phindile Ntliziywana and CLC Director Jaap de Visser highlighted the quandary facing National Treasury in the implementation of its own deadline for financial officials in local government to meet Treasury’s required levels of competency.

The rules, promulgated by Minister Trevor Manuel in 2007, which affect individual employment conditions were promulgated to address the failure of the majority of municipalities to achieve unqualified audits.

Along with the new requirements, a comprehensive training programme was instituted to help the affected officials meet the requisite competencies. The original deadline for this of 31 December 2012 was extended in April 2012 for ‘special merit’ cases decided on an individual basis and was last year futher extended to 30 September 2015, with the ‘special merit’ proviso dropped.

Writing on the CLC blog, Ntliziywana and De Visser opined that, while a strict implementation of the Treasury deadline would have shown “uncertainty into the employment status of many senior officials in local government”, placing a deadline in law and then extending it, not once but twice, was “not good for the rule of law”.

They advise that Minister Pravin Gordhan (in his new role as the Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs) “needs to implement the minimum competency requirements in the recently proclaimed regulations on appointment and conditions of services of local government officials”.

By exercising a critical voice regarding draft legislation, as the Parliamentary Programme has done, the CLC continues to contribute to strengthening civil society and governance in South Africa, while at the same time assisting nations elsewhere to improve their governance structures.

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Graham Jenneker:

Contestant in the corporate world Graham Jenneker is nothing if not persistent. The 2014 winner of the reality television adventure series Survivor South Africa: Champions, Jenneker says he initially auditioned for Survivor season 4 in 2011. However, he was rejected after the first audition.

That didn’t stop him though.

“I went to a friend’s house and when I got there I thought about it and realised I hadn’t given (the audition) my all. So I drove from Kenilworth back to the River Club (in Observatory).”

He simply lined up to audition again.

Again he was rejected.

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“So I walked out and joined a different queue.”

When one of the people involved in judging the auditions recognised him, Jenneker says he spun a story about being a twin and said his brother was also auditioning.

Again he did not make it through the audition, but he still persisted.

“I sat outside the door and waited for everyone to leave.”

Once all the people had left and only the Survivor judges were inside, he knocked on the door. Jenneker says when they then asked him what he wanted, he replied that he wanted to be in Survivor. Exasperated, they let him in to the first round.

He fell out in the fourth round of that season, but returned to audition for the Champions series.

Jenneker believes it was because the judges noted his persistence that he got in – and subsequently went on to win.

When asked why he wanted to be in Survivor, the amiable graduate (he studied BCom Law and finance at UWC from 2005 to 2008, followed by LLB during 2009 and 2010) replied: “Why not?”

He admits to being very competitive. “I played sport (both basketball and hockey) at provincial level,” he says.

Having grown up in Belhar, although the family house was on a nice street, gang shootings occured just blocks away and he thinks that having to always be aware of his surroundings and develop a sixth sense may have contributed to his keeping his cool in Survivor. “[Survivor] is hectic. It’s worse than anyone can imagine – physically and mentally. Almost everyone at some stage reaches breaking point.”

His ability to keep a level head under stress was what got him through.

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“I did a lot of research and realised it’s a psychological game. You’ve got to be mentally strong and use the power of reason, think logically and not become paranoid.”

The same approach will likely serve him well in the corporate world. Having worked at Nedgroup as a business development consultant, at BoE as a wills consultant, and at Investec as a Junior Investment Manager, he recently took up a newly created position as Assistant CEO at Grand Parade Investments.

This, says Jenneker, who is 29 years old, is the perfect training ground for his ambitions.

It allows him to experience first-hand how big business operates.

Rather board than bored Students often complain about having to recall considerable amounts of subject-specific terminology and definitions. They spend long hours trying to memorise all this information, finding it difficult to remain focused due to the boring and nonstimulating method of learning.

Recognising this problem, senior lecturer in the English for Educational Development (EED) programme, Dr Sharita Bharuthram, had the idea of developing a board game to combine learning with playful activity.

When Dr Bharuthram approached him early on in 2010, Dr Barry Andrews, lecturer in the Sports, Recreation and Exercise Science Department (SRES) said, FIFA World Cup fever was

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infecting the nation and later that day, he “... went to the computer and pulled up a picture of a soccer field and developed the basic layout of a game.”

After tweaking it, they took the concept to the UWC Technology Transfer office where further suggestions were made before a very basic version was tested on students.

Based on games such as Trivial Pursuit and dice-based board games where a player moves forward based on the number rolled, and hopes to avoid pitfalls in the process, players move their markers forward based on correctly answering a multiple choice question posed by the opposing team. As the marker gets closer to a ‘goal’ the colour on which the marker lands change, indicating questions need to be asked from cards of the same colour. This ensures that questions become progressively harder.

Should a team get an answer wrong, their marker moves backward, away from the ‘goal’.

Andrews said various pitfalls are also included to provide an element of fun.

He said up to six players have played on a team, meaning that up to 12 students can play at a time, in two teams of six. The multiple choice questions cover the subject matter of kinesiology, a first-year subject for occupational therapy, physiotherapy and biokinetics students, and is intended to be played within a tutorial session by students divided into two teams. However, questions can be substituted to suit learning in any theory-heavy subject.

Drs Bharuthram and Andrews have tested the game on students and have been pleased with its

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success in assisting students to grasp the subject matter. Even more rewarding is that they have seen the game assist students to improve marks in tests and exams.

Andrews said about 100 students played the very basic version of the game they had developed in 2010, and last year a further 100 students played the professional prototype developed with assistance from the Technology Transfer Office.

As participating in the game involves discussion and interaction, knowledge retention is far better than the cramming students tend to do before exams, says Andrews.

The Technology Transfer Office, located at the UWC Business Innovation Centre, has since produced a number of “Mental Goal Kinesiology” game prototypes. These prototypes were disseminated last year to other universities teaching kinesiology. The game has been applauded as a fun learning tool to assist learners and teachers, and Stellenbosch University and the University of KwaZulu-Natal are to introduce it to students this year and provide feedback.

IP and Contracts officer at the Technology Transfer Office, Naseema Sonday, said feedback from students using the game had all been positive, with students reporting that they found it assisted their learning.

It is hoped that as learners use the game, further commercialisation opportunities will follow. The goal is to use the game as a platform tool to assist teachers in any subject where students have to struggle with memorising large amounts of information.

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Ruby

shines in Asia

South African Ambassador to Thailand, Robina ‘Ruby’ Marks, facilitating a discussion at the UWC ’80s Alumni Reunion in October.

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Bangkok is a long long way from the Cape Town roots of Robina ‘Ruby’ Marks. But it is there that Ambassador Robina Marks represents her beloved South Africa.

Despite her hectic schedule, Marks clearly revels in her responsibilities as South Africa’s senior representative in Thailand, Cambodia, Myanmar (Burma) and Laos, as well as Permanent Observer at the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP).

Her calendar is filled with hosting events on significant South African holidays and commemorations, hosting dignitaries and other visitors from around Southeast Asia and elsewhere in the world, meeting senior officials from major international organisations and trade delegations, visiting surrounding nations and throwing cocktail parties for influential state and business representatives.

Much of her time is dedicated to boosting South Africa’s profile and promoting South Africa as a tourist and investment destination. This might involve visiting the South African stall at an international food and hotel expo, showcasing South African wines at another event, and generally seizing opportunities to put South Africa’s best foot forward.

There is not even a Christmas break, Marks said, as Thailand is a Buddhist country. “So it’s business as usual.”

“There is so much benefit in our working together as partners in trade,” she said. “And as a people we are warm, welcoming, culturally rich, and the world finds us a very interesting prospect.”

Marks’s enthusiasm for her mission comes from the heart. She is “proudly South African and bringing the brand of South Africa to the world,” she said.

Her commitment isn’t new. In her youth she fought apartheid as a community activist and student – she did her BA, BA (Honours) in sociology and teacher’s diploma at UWC. She was detained for trade union activities, and she laboured tirelessly as a gender activist and regional organiser of the United Democratic Front.

Once the back of the apartheid state had been broken, democracy offered new opportunities.

She worked as a researcher, lecturer and race and diversity consultant in South Africa and abroad.

She served as a change consultant to then Deputy Minister of Justice, Manto TshabalalaMsimang, and as head of the Office on the Status of Women in the Presidency. There were also countless international assignments, and she had stints in Ethiopia, Madagascar, Nigeria, Uganda and Zimbabwe.

Notwithstanding the glamour of the Bangkok posting, Marks hasn’t forgotten her roots in working-class Bellville.

“When I look back on my life and the trajectory of the life of a daughter of a domestic worker, what I have been able to achieve today has been as a result of a very strong awareness of the importance of social justice, and a refusal to discriminate against people because of their race, sexual orientation and sex,” she said. “I really believe in equal opportunities and I have a very strong sense of life purpose, and that we can and should build a different South Africa. One that celebrates differences and enables us all to live in harmony with one another.”

It is a lesson that South Africa can share with other countries, she believes. On behalf of South Africa, she and others are running reconciliation programmes in Thailand, Cambodia, Sri Lanka and other areas. A bust of Nelson Mandela in the Bangkok Cultural Centre is a reminder of that message.

“I think that the most important lesson – not only for Thailand but for other countries as well – is dialogue, dialogue and dialogue,” she said at a recent press conference.

That’s as much a part of the South African brand as wine and Table Mountain.

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Maintaining a moral compass in business

UWC alumnus and CEO at Kagiso Asset Management, Roland Greaver.

Coming as he did from a deeply religious pentecostal family which focused more on the spiritual than the secular world, Roland Greaver, who is now CEO at Kagiso Asset Management, was thrown into the deep end of political consciousness when he arrived at UWC in 1984.

Greaver lived in residence for his first three years, which was at the forefront of political activism on a highly politicised campus.

Obtaining his BCom degree in order to pursue his goal of becoming a chartered accountant

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was extraordinarily challenging, given his involvement in all-night meetings planning anti-apartheid campaigns, printing leaflets to distribute to students on Monday mornings, his responsibilities in the Association of Christian Students and endless class disruptions.

Accounting was also not the University’s strongest offering in those years. With lecturers generally seconded from other universities, there was little continuity.

His second year was particularly difficult from an academic perspective but there was no question of failing as that would have meant losing his state bursary. Class disruptions in that year were so severe that final exams were postponed until January.

Christmas that year was spent with “a leg of turkey in one hand and a textbook in the other,” quipped Greaver.

When police stormed campus with teargas and sjamboks, he and a group of about 18 fellow students were trapped on campus and arrested.

Jakes Gerwel was called to the stand by UWC’s defence lawyer. Gerwel’s eloquence convinced the magistrate that he and his co-accused were not the ringleaders responsible for the unrest rolling throughout the nation as the state prosecutor argued.

The prosecutor tried to argue that UWC was anarchic and lawless.

“I’ll never forget what Jakes said,” said Greaver, “in his supremely eloquent Afrikaans, to an Afrikaans judge, he said ‘reëls is of verbiedend of toelatent’ (rules are either restricting or liberating). It was tough times, but also great in that it was an institution in search of its soul.”

The tough times did not deter Greaver from his goal, achieving his honours in accounting while working at the Small Business Development Corporation and completing his board exams after being seconded to Ernst & Young in the USA. Investment, rather than auditing, was where he wanted to go, however, so he joined Sanlam as an investment analyst.

Then in 1998, along with 14 other investment professionals, he left to start Gryphon Investment.

The market crash at the time meant their new company never really took off, but it caught the attention of Coronation and Kagiso Group, who approached him with the idea of starting up Kagiso Asset Management.

Eric Molobi, a BEE pioneer, was instrumental in getting him on board. With the high credentials of the new but rapidly expanding Coronation on the one hand, and Kagiso Trust – founded by eminent clergy such as Emeritus Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Beyers Naudé and Frank Chikane – on the other, Kagiso Asset Management was an appealing prospect.

The company has grown significantly since its launch in 2001 and manages R70bn of mostly institutional savings funds, which is about equivalent to where Coronation was 14 years after starting out.

Kagiso Asset Management is a company guided by a conscience, and strives to not only avoid directly investing in companies involved in harmful practices to people or the environment, but also provides its employees with equity, ensuring they are not just employees – a factor which influenced Greaver’s decision to leave Sanlam in 1998.

The background of “deep values instils a type of humanity to business where it’s not all about money but also about providing a just environment,” said Greaver, living proof that a socio-political consciousness and spirituality need not conflict with business ideals.

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New Centre to explore spirituality in society UWC launched its new Desmond Tutu Centre for Spirituality and Society in December 2014. The Centre is the outcome of years of aspiration, planning and fundraising. Its mission is to engage faith and community-based organisations, around the link between spirituality and society.

The Centre was inspired by the leadership legacy of Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu, UWC’s Chancellor for nearly 25 years, whose life and ministry also inspired the founding of the University’s Desmond Tutu Chair for Ecumenical Theology and Social Transformation in 2012. The broad aim of that Chair is to mark the impact that Tutu has had on South African society, particularly his contributions to ecumenical theology and social transformation.

“The goal of the Chair was to engage academically with the Tutu legacy, through postgraduate teaching and research, and the goal of the Centre is to link that legacy to society, especially through engaging with civil society,” said current incumbent of the Chair, Professor Christo Lombard.

“In the broad sense – and it’s very ambitious – the goal of the Centre is to help strengthen civil society, and then, more specifically, to acknowledge the role of faith-based organisations [FBOs] in civil society,” said Prof Ernst Conradie, chair of the Department of Religion and Theology at UWC. The mandate of the Centre is also informed by the historical legacy of the University of the Western Cape itself, particularly its history as an ‘engaged university’, working

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closely with communities in the Western Cape during and after the apartheid years.

The Centre’s engagement with FBOs – which Conradie describes as “dynamos of social change” – is envisioned as a next chapter in that tradition. The Centre will act as an interface between the University and these FBOs. This role will include setting up internships for students wishing to work with FBOs, and hosting suitably themed conferences and workshops. The expertise in the FBOs will also be roped in for postgraduate teaching and their own research.

“It will be a reciprocal process in which the University will be offering a Centre through which academic teaching and research are made available for the benefit of society, and where society can let our students be of service to the community,” said Lombard.

Since the formation of the Chair, Lombard and Conradie have participated in the Concerned Citizens Group, which mediated in talks between communities and the Western Cape government on issues of

Prof Christo Lombard, who holds the Desmond Tutu Chair for Ecumenical Theology and Social Transformation, helped steer the University’s efforts to establish the Desmond Tutu Centre for Spirituality and Society, launched in December 2014.

service delivery in 2013. More recently, UWC also played its part in the founding of the AHA Movement (Authentic, Hopeful Action), described as a ‘Christian response to the triple problem of poverty, unemployment and inequality in South Africa’. The Centre and AHA were in fact launched at UWC on the same day.

The Centre will also explore new research projects, including some of the initiatives started by the Department of Religion and Theology. This will cover themes such as ecumenical studies and social ethics (“what the Church is and what the Church does”, said Conradie); food contestation (working with the Centre of Excellence in Food Security, a national facility launched at UWC in 2014); and poverty, unemployment

and inequality (this relates specifically to its collaboration with AHA).

“The Centre will create the kind of intellectual space to pursue particular issues that can normally not be done within specific departments, in part because the Centre will be interdisciplinary,” said Conradie.

“The Centre will play a major role, such as publishing on poverty, unemployment and inequality, from an engaged and critical human perspective,” said Lombard, who is serving as interim director until a permanent director is appointed by the board overseeing its functions.

The Centre will operate as a virtual institution until it can be located in a planned building on campus.

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UWC thanks its sponsors for their support towards the 80s reunion

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of the University of the Western Cape, which is owned and operated

by Dressco Corp. We opened our

first concept store at UWC in 2007 and will be launching our second store in January 2015 – Campus Lifestyle Sport. We house a range of merchandise lines which includes corporate and promotional wear, sport and leisure wear, gifts for special occasions as well as giveaways for conferences and seminars.

In 2013 we launched our first Alumni Range within our store, which is also sold via our online site www. campuslifestyle.co.za. Like all good teams, we mix youth with experience, expertise with fresh thinking. Become Proudly UWC – visit us in the Arts Building or Student Centre or contact us at 021 9599341/2.

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KWV today has over 100 luxury products exported worldwide. The Paarl estate, one of the largest cellar complexes in the world, features the famed Cathedral Cellar. KWV is revered internationally as a producer of premium wine and brandy products. The KWV Wine Emporium claimed over 300 awards from 2012 to 2013. KWV was classified as a World-Class Distillery at the World Spirits Awards 2014 for their amazing award-winning brandies.

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UWC alumnus and director at the DLA Cliffe Dekker Hofmeyr law firm, Badian Maasdorp.

Badian Maasdorp: Embracing a pan-African perspective While the exodus of academic talent from UWC to the new government under Nelson Mandela created challenges for the University, the proof of new opportunity for those willing to grasp it inspired Badian Maasdorp.

It brought home the realisation that commitment and dedication was all he needed to become a lawyer representing international interests across the African continent.

Maasdorp, who is now a director at law firm DLA Cliffe Dekker Hofmeyr, entered his first year as a BA Law student at UWC in 1990, graduating with his LLB at the end of 1995.

The fifth-born of seven siblings who all studied at UWC, he had been politically active while at high school in Port

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Elizabeth and was aware of the calibre of people on campus at the time. The sense of change was in the air when he “arrived at UWC in the first week of February 1990,” says Maasdorp. “I arrived on the Friday and that Sunday, Mandela was released. There was a sense of the world opening up in front of your eyes.”

“In the 1990s it was a most exciting time to be a law student as many of the founding fathers of our Constitution walked our campus,” says Maasdorp, mentioning luminaries such as Dullah Omar, Kadar Asmal and Albie Sachs.

While the loss of great academics such as Jakes Gerwel was keenly felt, Maasdorp believes it gave impetus to him, and other students, to expand their personal horizons.

Maasdorp says his choice to study law was influenced by role models such as his elder brother (Advocate Romeo Maasdorp) and lawyers such as Nelson Mandela, Oliver Tambo and Dullah Omar. The ending of apartheid also meant his legal path was not restricted by his political philosophy to the field of human rights, and he was free to move into any specialisation he wished.

He was hesitant about entering the profession after graduating though, spending a year working with the Media Monitoring Group before deciding to do his articles. His rise in the legal profession thereafter was rapid. Just four years after joining Cliffe Dekker Hofmeyr in 1998, he was appointed a director.

Explaining the appointment, Maasdorp says that the Law Faculty at UWC had a good reputation and was known for producing top black lawyers who were very much in demand in the new dispensation. The late 1990s and early 2000s were also the height of BEE activity so there were “some internal reasons in terms of business considerations” for his appointment.

But Maasdorp asserts that his track record has proved his was not a token appointment.

Not only a beneficiary of affirmative action, Maasdorp became a specialist in BEE mergers and acquisitions. “I fancy myself as a bit of a politician so I was happy to get into that space. I like to be close to where decisions are made because I like to have an influence on things,” he says.

After being involved in BEE mergers and acquisitions, he moved to specialising in banking and finance, with clients such as the Public Investment Corporation and the African Development Bank.

Maasdorp believes in the potential of the African continent as the next nexus of economic growth, fostering increased corporate activity and the need for legal advice. Seeing his future as a pan-African lawyer, he qualified in 2014 to become a solicitor of the Senior Courts of England and Wales, as international financing in Africa is predominantly governed by English Law. As to how his youthful idealism applies against the hard reality of corporate law, he admits to having to represent clients who have been criticised for their roles in Africa but says that, as a lawyer, he has the ability to influence his client’s choices.

“I’d rather be at the table affecting the outcome than outside throwing stones,” he says.

His advice to young lawyers looking toward corporate law is to cast their eye on Africa as a whole. They must be prepared to get mud on their shoes though. “I’m critical of South Africans who talk about Africa while sitting in Sandton. I’m a proponent of getting the dust in your throat in Addis and Maputo.”

While unmarried, without children and guilty of occasional bouts of workaholism, he says he gets “a kick out of the massive human and economic potential that can be unlocked” in Africa.

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Dentists can detect child abuse Dr Nadia Mohamed’s wide-ranging research interests include trauma and sports dentistry, pulp therapy (the pulp is the inner core of the tooth) and field dentistry.

But Mohamed’s main professional focus is children. She is the head of paediatric dentistry in UWC’s Department of Orthodontics and Paediatric Dentistry, and most of her patients at Tygerberg Hospital are children under 12 years old.

Last year the South African Dental Association asked Mohamed to write an introductory article on child abuse for its journal, the South African Dental Journal(SADJ). UWC colleague, Professor Sudeshni Naidoo, who has written articles on paediatric dentistry, including a short piece titled What should I do when I suspect a child patient is being abused? in the SADJ in 2010, was the coauthor of the paper.

Their collaborative clinical review – titled A Review of Child Abuse and the Role of the Dental Team in South Africa – appeared in the July 2014 issue of the SADJ (Vol 69, no 6).

The article briefly touches on the types of child abuse that dentists may encounter, as well as the factors that lead to abuse and the known extent of the problem (like rape, child abuse is believed to be considerably under-reported). It has been found that almost half of child homicides “were due to child abuse and neglect and almost threequarters occurred in children under the age of five years”.

The writers pay substantial attention to how to recognise signs of abuse, including the behavioural signs dentists should look out for, as well as clinical signs such as bruising, intra-oral injuries and fractures of the jaws/skulls. They also explain the need for thorough examination of the patient and detailed documentation of the injuries observed,

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including photographing evidence.

Mohamed is keen to point out the part that dentists can play in the detecting and reporting of suspected abuse.

“We deal with kids on a daily basis,” she says.

“They come back for follow-up appointments, so you build up a rapport with your patients. So in other words, you as a dentist would be able to pick up if there are changes in behaviour, if there are changes in appearance, and so on.”

Citing the Prevention of Violence Act, the Domestic Violence Act and the Children’s Act, the authors emphasise that all professionals in South Africa, as in many other countries, have “a moral and legal responsibility to report cases of suspected child abuse/neglect.”

The authors acknowledge that dentists often do not report suspected cases for a number of reasons, including the fear of getting involved and losing patients, and because suspicions can be difficult to confirm. “Also, it’s a topic that makes people uncomfortable,” says Mohamed, “so people don’t want to get involved, and they don’t want to pry.”

But she points out that dentists are only under obligation to report their suspicions, after which the state – in the form of Child Welfare, the Department of Social Development and the police will pursue investigations.

Given the number of reported cases, the article is a timely reminder to dentists whose training, Mohamed says, only occasionally touches on the issue of child abuse. “It’s a topic that needs to be reinforced to keep it uppermost in people’s minds. If it’s not something they’re reminded of, they don’t see it.”

The full SADJ article is downloadable from the UWC research repository at repository.uwc.ac.za.

Dr Nadia Mohamed, head of paediatric dentistry in UWC’s Department of Orthodontics and Paediatric Dentistry.

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Ruth performs quite a juggling act

UWC alumna Ruth Saunders.

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UWC alumna Ruth Saunders is seeking to build social cohesion among communities in Grabouw using the sport of handball.

Although less well known in South Africa, handball is played in most countries in the world and is an Olympic sport. Other than a ball and goals it requires no special equipment and can be played indoors or outdoors.

Saunders’ work in Grabouw is part of her master’s studies at UWC, which she started in 2013. She took a break from studies last year to participate in the sport and development and peace programme introduced by UWC’s Interdisciplinary Centre of Excellence for Sports Science and Development (ICESSD).

Saunders, who studied Human Movement from 1993 and went on to graduate with Honours in Development Studies, is exploring how sport can assist in healing and cohesion in tandem with the ICESSD outreach projects.

Saunders was first introduced to handball as a student when ICESSD’s Professor Marion Keim invited German handball coaches to UWC in 1995. Having been “sporty” and an active netball and volleyball player while growing up in Langa, handball impressed her with its speed and dynamism. Today Saunders, who has been president of the South African Handball Federation (SAHF) since 2008 and is very active in promoting the sport, says “handball is in [her] blood”.

She helped to organise the handball Global Coaching Course (GCC) in Africa, the first phase

of which took place in Johannesburg last year, coordinating the GCC for the 32 Anglophone countries in Africa that were involved (South Africa was the coordinating country for the continent).

The second phase was scheduled in Gabon but the outbreak of Ebola saw it moved to Qatar during the Handball World Championships in January. She had to ensure all seven South African coaches from across the country, including one woman, got there.

Besides being SAHF president, Saunders is president of Region 5, which constitutes the SADC countries, and serves on a commission of the International Handball Federation that deals with conflict resolution and the application of the rules of the federation. She is also involved in a pilot project supported by the German Olympic Committee and SASCOC to introduce handball at FET institutions countrywide. Aside from all these responsibilities and working to establish the sport in Grabouw, she is also working to reestablish handball at her alma mater. She says unfortunately handball at UWC faded away some time after she left.

Although UWC has no indoor facility for handball, there is an indoor community hall nearby that can be accessed by students and an indoor facility at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT) Bellville campus that UWC teams could use. Saunders, who is a sports development officer at CPUT, also wants to establish handball as a sport on that campus.

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Living the dream

Dancing to the top

Aviwe Mgijima’s cricket career has been resurrected since he joined UWC. The year 2014 may have been cricketer Aviwe Mgijima’s breakthrough season. He was selected to the Cape Cobras team, regained his place in the Western Province side and was included in a South African Invitation side that took on the West Indies.

Born in Sheshegu village outside Alice in the Eastern Cape, Mgijima grew up in a cricket and rugby-loving family.

After excelling at local club level, he was selected to play for Border and the South African Colts Under-19 squad before he joined Western Province in 2011, where he was named Club Cricketer of the Month in November 2012. In 2013, after a slump in form cost him his place in the Western Province side, the 25-year-old joined the University through the Sport Skills for Life Skills programme, which offers full bursaries to promising cricketers. “All you need to do is to play

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cricket and pass your studies,” said Mgijima of the non-profit programme.

Guided by Andy Moles, head coach of the UWC cricket team, Mgijima’s performances improved and he was signed by the Cape Cobras early in 2014. “Making the Cobras is a big high moment for me,” commented the all-rounder, who is doing a BA degree, majoring in industrial psychology and language and communication at the University.

Mgijima played alongside several members of the Proteas in the Cobras team, including Graham Smith, Hashim Amla, Vernon Philander and JP Duminy.

“It was so nice being in the same change rooms with those top-class cricketers,” he said.

Mgijima’s ultimate dream is to make the Proteas team, but as long as he is playing professional cricket and doing well, he is happy.

UWC Dance Club has won almost every competition for the last eight years.

UWC’s Dance Sport Club is simply the best in South Africa. Since 2007, the club has won the University Sport South Africa championships seven times, been the Team Match Champions eight times, the Formation Champions three times and came second in four other tournaments.

It won the Club of the Year award at the University four times, has received 12 full and 40 half colour awards and produced over 150 dancers.

“We leave nothing to chance,” head coach Cheslin Paris said. “We prepare for any and every situation and we believe that we are only as strong as our weakest member. We have developed a culture of helping and learning from each other and the senior dancers are always assisting the beginners and intermediate

dancers to develop and grow faster.

“The club boasts many champions in their respective dance categories and this is very important to maintain high levels of focus in the studio, as the senior dancers become role models for the beginners.”

Dance was regarded as a recreational activity on campus until Paris revived the sport in his first year of law studies in 2006. There were challenges. Paris said many students perceived dance sport to be for females.

Although dance sport is financially demanding, Paris believes “participation in the arts contributes in important ways to students’ lives and learning...It creates a healthy break away from the books and stimulates the mind and body to be alert and energised for optimum use.”

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Rising star aims for Olympics

UWC swimming sensation Jessica Ashley-Cooper has been flying the South African flag high in various international competitions.

Jessica Ashley-Cooper’s sporting motto is “whatever it takes, bring it on”. And with that philosophy the UWC swimming sensation is going places.

Ashley-Cooper participated in the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, Scotland, in July 2014, accompanied by her coach, Cedric Finch, who is also head coach of the UWC Aquatics Club. She also took part in the Fédération Internationale de Natation (International Swimming Federation or FINA) championships in Doha in December, and won almost every provincial and national championship she participated in, including the University Sport South Africa games where she broke the competition’s 50m backstroke record.

“2014 was a great year for me,” she said of her achievements. “My swimming improved and I reached my goal to represent South Africa at the Commonwealth Games. I also finished my studies at

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Varsity College with a marketing degree.”

“The Commonwealth Games in Glasgow was an amazing experience. I managed to make the semifinal in my 100m backstroke and on the last day, our girls’ relay team came 5th in the 4x100m individual medley,” she commented on her return.

Her success did not come overnight. From a young age she competed in a variety of sports, most of them having to do with water. She did biathle (a swim-run event), biathlon, lifesaving and open water swimming. “I have gained my strength with hard work, training in the pool and a lot of specific gym work,” she said.

Ashley-Cooper has advice for up-and-coming athletes. “If you want to accomplish something in life, put your mind to it and never give up! The mind is very powerful and that’s what has gotten me so far with my swimming career.”

Freddie Muller shines in 2014

Freddie Muller prepares to take a penalty during a 2014 Varsity Shield game.

University of the Western Cape rugby captain Freddie Muller had a dream season in 2014, crowned by his selection to the Western Province Club Sevens side that competed in the World Club Sevens tournament in England and Ireland in August 2014.

“Being part of that particular team was really phenomenal, as sevens is different from the 15-a-side I am used to playing.”

The sevens discipline has sharpened his skills and he has even learned new skills for both sevens and 15s. “Playing sevens has made me a better all-round player. The tournaments I had to play in were tough because I played against many provincial players that only focus on sevens rugby,” he said.

“I had to let go of my 15-man mentality and I had to find my feet for the sevens type of play,” he said.

Muller participated in the Western Province Club Sevens tournament last year in the UWC team that beat Kuils River Rugby Club in the finals.

He was then selected to the Western Province team in the World Club Sevens tournament which took place in England and Ireland (Blue Bulls was the only other South African team among the twelve participants).

“Playing in such an arena was exciting but scary at the same time. It brought the best out of all the players and I learned a great deal,” said Muller.

One highlight of the tournament for Muller was that he got the chance to play at Twickenham (the home of the England national team) – which he describes as unbelievable.

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Smeda is simply the best

Rodwell’s road to Rio 2016

UWC superstar Leandra Smeda realised her dream to represent her country in 2014 when she was selected for the senior women’s football team, Banyana Banyana, and participated in the African Women’s Championship (AWC) in Namibia where the Banyana team finished fourth, narrowly missing qualifying for the World Cup in June 2014 in Canada. Smeda, a UWC postgraduate student in sport, development and peace, is an experienced Banyana Banyana member with 36 caps and 13 goals. The attacking midfielder is comfortable playing on either side of the field or in the middle.

“It has been a good year for me,” said Smeda, who was crowned UWC Sportsperson of the Year at the University’s annual Sports Awards in 2014.

Smeda, who is from Velddrif on the West Coast, also shone for the University team, and was the top scorer at the University Sport South Africa club championships in Durban in December where the team finished third. Her sterling performance at the event earned her a call-up to the USSA national team.

The skilful player was also central in the University team winning the USSA Western Cape League, and doing well in the South African Football Association’s Sasol League, the highestlevel women’s football league in South Africa.

Smeda said she was a big fan of Fifa world player of the year Cristiano Ronaldo, “because even though he has achieved so much already he still pushes himself to be the best every season.”

She noted that UWC has played a huge role in her blossoming soccer career. “UWC was the first club I played for when I moved to Cape Town to further

For UWC star sprinter, Rodwell Ndlovu, the road to the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, started eight years ago with a plan he put together with his coach. In August 2014, the BSc honours in statistics and population studies student competed at the 19th Confederation of African Athletes, Africa senior championships in Marrakech, Morocco, where he did well to reach the semi-finals of the 200m race.

“I’m only 22 years old and I feel that I’m growing in athletics,” Zimbabwe-born Ndlovu said on his return from the competition. “I’m on the right track to achieve my goals to secure places in the [International Association of Athletics Federations’] World Championships this year and the Olympics...which my coach and I set eight years ago.”

The African Championships had meant a great deal to him, noted Ndlovu. “It was an honour and a great experience to perform with some of the top athletes in the world.”

As is typical of students with sporting ambitions, Ndlovu has to do a lot of juggling. “I’m doing my postgraduate degree, which is very taxing, but I’m 100% [confident] I will finish this year with my honours degree while still fully participating in full-time professional athletics, which is also demanding,” he said. “I graduated without failing any module and submitted all my assignments on time without being given special treatment but still achieved being a top athlete and sound academic student. You just need to balance the two and prioritise.”

Ndlovu, who also serves as chairperson of the UWC Sports Council, has a word of advice for youngsters aspiring to be athletes. “Your

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Leandra Smeda received top honours at the annual UWC Sports Awards. my studies in 2008, and the club has helped me grow as a footballer over the years.”

And her involvement in the national team has also been beneficial to the UWC team. “I always tell my teammates about my experiences at the national team and share my training programme and the playing style we use at Banyana Banyana with my coach so that he can implement it at the club.”

UWC athlete Rodwell Ndlovu has set his sights on qualifying for the World Championships. circumstances or where you come from should not be the reason why you can’t perform to the best of your abilities. Find something you love and have ambitions to do it better than anyone else.”

Ndlovu, who graduated with a BA in March, appreciates the support the University has provided: “UWC gave me the opportunity to showcase what I can offer, and it’s through the University that I’m here today”.

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Dream season despite studies

Tapelo Sixishe was a key player in the success of the UWC Football side in the 2014 season.

Tapelo Sixishe played an integral part in the performance of the University of the Western’s football side during the 2014 season. The young man was the top goal scorer for UWC when they won the University Sport South Africa (USSA) Western Cape competition, and also topped the goal scoring chart for his previous club, Mbekweni United.

He has since signed a one-year deal with FC Cape Town in the National First Division (his talent was spotted in a friendly he played against them!).

Sixishe said that many of the players in the UWC team played for different clubs and that they played together for the first time in their opening match of the Varsity Football competition.

The 20-year-old nursing student said the Varsity Football and USSA games helped the

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team to work on its shortcomings and play better.

He also mentioned that the team had found a winning combination for the following year. As the only university student in the FC Cape Town set-up, Sixishe found the going tough when trying to balance football and his studies. In fact he had given up playing for Chippa United’s Vodacom side in 2012 when training clashed with his studies. “It is a struggle, because at FC Cape Town we train twice a day, in the morning and in the afternoon.” He said the course he was doing was demanding, but his club was very supportive.

He encouraged other footballers and sports people to continue studying. “Education is as important as sport because you can get a lifetime injury that can end your sporting career, but no one can take education away from you.”

UWC boxer’s career blooms

Sinethemba Blom, one of UWC’s finest boxers, won gold in the welterweight division at the National Championships last year.

The University of the Western Cape had an excellent sporting year in 2014.

One of the sportsmen who contributed to the success of UWC sport was boxer Sinethemba Blom. In July 2014, at the National Boxing Championships in East London, Blom beat all comers in the welterweight division (at 62kg) to become the national champion.

The win fulfilled a dream Blom said he cherished since the moment he first put his hands into a pair of gloves at the age of six.

“I knew that with hard work and dedication it would become possible,” the soft-spoken psychology student said.

He said the competition was tough in 2014 and, despite being disqualified the previous year, he was not deterred. “I believe that my training and

preparation for the competition made it possible for me to be the champion.”

Blom, who is from Du Noon, praised his couch Andile Tshongolo for the contribution he made.

“A good coach is very important in your boxing career, but you also need to be willing to put in the hard work,” he said.

UWC Head of Boxing, Glen Bentley, who has high regard for Blom’s work ethic said, “what made Blom one of a kind was that he was not only a good boxer, but he also did well with his studies.

Doing well academically is very important, and Blom understands this.” Bentley believes Blom is a true role model in his community, and he is confident that Blom will serve his community as a psychologist in the future.

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BOOK REVIEWS

DEAR BULLET On 16 April 2014 Sixolile Mbalo launched Dear Bullet, a memoir of how she survived being sexually assaulted and shot at a very young age.

This brave and resourceful young woman says she wrote the book for other rape survivors who are silent and feel like they have no one to talk to. By sharing her traumatic experience with the public she hopes to motivate rape survivors to speak out as part of the process of healing. She says the book is for people who are without hope and feel as though life is not worth living after being raped – people who are thinking of giving up on themselves and shutting the world out.

“I wrote this book to give hope to the hopeless.

I want to change their life perspective; to encourage them so that they keep on fighting back despite whatever it is that they have been

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through or are going through,” she says.

The book tells the harrowing story of how, as a young teenager in the Eastern Cape in 2001, she was raped in a school toilet, shot and dumped in a latrine to die. But Sixolile lived, not only to see her rapist jailed for his crime, but to assist and counsel many other victims of sexual violence.

The bullet of the book title is still lodged inside her body, too dangerous to remove.

The 27-year-old writer moved to Cape Town shortly after the assault took place. In Cape Town she eventually sought counselling with Rape Crisis, which put her in touch with UWC’s Professor Antjie Krog. The book emerged through a multilingual writing project at UWC, in which students are encouraged to write their own stories. Sixolile was guided by author Sindiwe Magona and Antjie Krog, who co-wrote the book.

THE INDIVIDUAL A new book by Dr F. Fiona Moolla, a senior lecturer in UWC’s Arts Faculty, was published

by James Currey in March 2014. Dr Moolla, who holds a PhD from the University of Cape Town and has been a recipient of both Mellon and Fulbright scholarships, has a special interest in African literature and orature, particularly novelists’ cultural and philosophical constructions of the person in African, European and Islamic worlds.

Dr Moolla’s monograph, Reading Nuruddin Farah: The individual, the novel & the idea of home, traces the history of the novel through Farah’s oeuvre, examining his writing within the context of his thematic reference of Somali and Islamic society, culture, traditions and politics, and the centrality of female characters in some of his work.

Among Dr Moolla’s previously published work on the African novel genre are: The Body Unbound: Ritual Scarification and Autobiographical forms in Wole Soyinka’s Aké: The Years of Childhood (Journal of Commonwealth Literature); When Orature Becomes Literature: Somali Oral Poetry and Folk Tales in Somali Novels (Comparative Literature Studies); and Border Crossings in the African Travel Narratives of Ibn Battuta, Richard Burton and Paul Theroux (Journal of Postcolonial Writing).

THINKING COMMUNITIES

Extraordinary Professor of Educational Psychology in the Faculty of Education, Dr Lena Green, has edited a new book, Schools as Thinking Communities, aimed at teachers at all levels, curriculum designers, education planners,

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teacher educators and interested parents. She describes the book as one which teaches thinking.

“It explains why we now believe that intelligence is not fixed, but can be enhanced. Its authors argue that, if this is the case, teachers and mentors at all levels have a responsibility to teach the creative and critical thinking skills that promote effective thinking, reasoning and learning.”

Schools, it is claimed, need to become not only learning communities but thinking communities.

Written by experts in their fields, the book discusses eight ways in which thinking can be taught or mediated, giving examples of their use in local contexts: Habits of Mind, the CoRT (Cognitive Research Trust) programme, Philosophy for Children (P4C), Cognitive Enrichment Advantage (CEA), Thinking Maps, Instrumental Enrichment (IE), Thinking Actively in a Social Context (TASC) and Cooperative Learning.

The book also pays attention to the manner in which thinking skills are introduced, discussing this in terms of the individual, the classroom and

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the school, and points out how conceptualising schools as thinking communities can complement the teaching of lifeskills and promote social and academic inclusion.

The book will interest anyone wishing to know more about how human intelligence can be enhanced, in schools or elsewhere.

‘Two Screenplays’

Nobel laureate and acclaimed writer JM Coetzee has published Two Screenplays, containing cinematic adaptations of two of his most famous works, Waiting for the Barbarians and In the Heart of the Country.

The 2014 book, published by UCT Press, was edited by Professor Hermann Wittenberg, Associate Professor in the Department of English at the University of the Western Cape, who also wrote the introduction to the work, in which he discusses the differences between the screenplay and novel treatments and Coetzee’s approach to the film genre, which Coetzee has acknowledged

has influenced the form of his writing. Prof Wittenberg teaches courses in Eco-critical Writing, South African Literature and Digital Culture. He has written several articles on JM Coetzee in peer-reviewed journals.

Several other works by JM Coetzee have been adapted for screen, such as the novella The Lives of Animals (2002) and the more widely seen, Australian-made, Disgrace (2008). Neither screenplay was written by the author of the eponymous works. The film Dust (1985), was an adaptation written by Marion Hänsel based on In the Heart of the Country (which Coetzee felt lacked the vitality and pace of the book).

Zebra Crossing

UWC creative writing lecturer Meg Vandermerwe has published her debut novel, Zebra Crossing. Set in Cape Town during the Fifa Soccer World Cup in 2010, the novel explores themes of xenophobia, prejudice and unrequited love through the eyes of Chipo, a young Zimbabwean woman who

migrates to Cape Town with her brother, in search of a better life.

CONDITIONAL TENSE

Prolific author and poet Professor Antjie Krog of the Arts Faculty has published a new book, entitled Conditional Tense: Memory and Vocabulary after the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Focusing on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) as a starting point, Krog discusses a wide range of texts, including texts from black women, Afrikaner men and comic strips in relation to the ideas of African philosophers, theologians and a Nobel Prize-winning writer.

The book acknowledges the enduring negative effects of three centuries of racial and colonial exploitation on what Desmond Tutu dubbed ‘the Rainbow Nation’, while holding to an optimistic vision of the post-apartheid democratic South Africa.

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2014 In a nutshell BANKSETA injects R21 million into CA training at UWC Banking Sector Education and Training Authority (BANKSETA) awarded R21 million to UWC towards programmes that will grow the number of African and Coloured chartered accountants in the country.

UWC team wins student competition Representing South Africa, a UWC team swept aside the rest of the competition and took top honours in the Africa Region leg of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists’ 2014 Imperial Barrel Awards.

UWC and Belgian partners cap prestigious 10-year collaboration Scholars from UWC and Belgium gathered to celebrate the many successes of The Dynamics of Building a Better Society programme – a partnership initiated in 2003 by Belgium’s Flemish Inter-University CouncilUniversity Development Cooperation.

Sport-based conflict transformation IS THE key to UWC’s new partnership UWC’s Interdisciplinary Centre of Excellence for Sport Science Development has partnered with the International Generations for Peace Institute.

New Centre of Excellence at UWC to tackle food security The newly launched DST-NRF Centre of Excellence in Food Security (CoE) at UWC will investigate food creation, distribution, consumption and governance.

The CoE is a collaboration between the University of the Western Cape and the University of Pretoria.

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UWC Summer graduation At UWC’s Summer Graduation, Professor Brian O’Connell capped a total of 3 311 graduates, including the country’s first recipients of Master in Nanoscience degrees.

Sachs speaks on the legacy of Oliver Tambo Former Constitutional Court Judge Albie Sachs delivered UWC’s 9th Dullah Omar Memorial Lecture entitled Speaking to Oliver Tambo’s Ghost:Twenty years into democracy in March 2014.

UWC marks World TB Day UWC nursing students commemorated World TB Day on 24 March – the event was themed ‘Unmask Stigma’ – by distributing masks to the campus community and answering questions about the disease.

Sequencing of tsetse fly genome a wake-up call for sleeping sickness In another triumph for South African biomedical research, researchers at the South African Medical Research Council’s Bioinformatics Unit and UWC’s SANBI, with their international collaborators, have sequenced the tsetse fly genome.

Researchers identify galaxy clusters from the early universe UWC astrophysicist Dr Mattia Vaccari was part of an international team that combined data from two satellites to view clusters nearly a billion years older than the oldest clusters previously known.

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UWC sports centre scoops architecture award The UWC sports stadium, which is currently under construction, won the Architecture South Africa Project Award 2013 for its excellence in architecture design.

UWC students on top of the world Four UWC students formed part of the South African Supercomputing Centre for High Performance computing team that won the 2014 Annual International Student Cluster competition in Leipzig, Germany.

UWC’s CPA goes gospel UWC’s Centre for the Performing Arts (CPA) hosted its third Jazz Vespers service at St. George’s Cathedral in May 2014 where the UWC Wind Orchestra and Saxophone Ensemble performed.

Writing festival brings together local and international scribes UWC hosted Southern Africa’s first multilingual creative writing programme called UWC Creates. The programme brought together students writing in English, isiXhosa and Afrikaans, as well as national and international poets.

Paperjet competition soars to new heights Move over, Sherlock UWC’s Faculty of Law completed the training of 48 Gauteng detectives who had taken the Higher Certificate in Forensic Examination course.

UWC’s Science Learning Centre for Africa hosted the 2014 Paperjet competition in partnership with the Sakhikamva Foundation – an organisation that seeks to raise awareness of aviation, focusing on the development of young South Africans.

Learners had to design paper jets that could fly fast and far by using their knowledge of aerodynamics, mathematics and paper engineering.

PLAAS simplifies fishing policy UWC’s PLAAS collaborated with local and international partners Masifundise Development Trust and Too Big to Ignore to help inform smallscale fishing communities around South Africa about their rights in relation to the new policy, through its user-friendly and compact publication, Handbook for Fishing Communities in South Africa.

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Green nanotechnology centre launched The new Centre for Green Nanotechnology was launched at UWC in July 2014 in partnership with the University of Missouri.

Dentistry students give back to the community

UWC remains Africa’s greenest campus

Dentistry students from UWC’s Faculty of Dentistry visited Bonnievale in the Cape Winelands as part of their outreach programme, where they had the opportunity to apply their newly acquired skills and help patients in the community.

UWC was awarded Africa’s greenest campus for the second time at the third national Association of College and University Housing Officers International Southern Africa Chapter African Green Campus Initiative conference.

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UWC entrepreneurs develop prize-winning app UWC students won third place at the national Unilever Sustainable Living Plan Enactus Challenge for developing UniBuy – a mobile purchasing system.

Top award for UWC marine biologist Prof Mark Gibbons was awarded the prestigious Gilchrist Memorial Award for his work on the ecology of ocean and offshore systems, and the population increases of pelagic goby and jellyfish.

Manuel weighs up SA democracy at Asmal lecture Former cabinet minister Trevor Manuel delivered the annual Kader Asmal Human Rights Awards Lecture at UWC in July 2014 where he spoke about the role of democratic institutions in promoting human rights.

Prof Baker wins Women in Science Award Professor Priscilla Baker, co-head of UWC’s SensorLab, won a DST Women in Science Award (in the Distinguished Women Scientists Category in Physical and Engineering Sciences) for her many contributions to electrochemistry research and education.

HySA’s high-flying project Hydrogen South Africa Systems Centre of Competence at UWC has partnered with Airbus UK and the National Aerospace Centre in a three-year project on the application of hydrogen fuel cells in airlines.

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UWC INSTITUTIONAL ADVANCEMENT

From hope, to action through knowledge