An aerial view of the Wits sports fields and northern suburbs of Johannesburg with its dense canopy of trees. With an estimated 10 million trees, Johannesburg has the largest artificial forest in the southern hemisphere. Click here for virtual tours of Wits’ campuses.
Image: Wits 360 Tour
18 Research The Rhisotope Project
Giant task for tiny beads
44 Feature The Centre for the Less Good Idea
Celebrated composer and choreographer Nhlanhla Mahlangu, shows a way to create and heal
South Africa R50 (incl. VAT & postage) International R100 (incl. postage)
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WITSReview Magazine, Volume 52, October edition 2024
Schatz, Brett Eloff
Image: Brett Eloff
Turning the tide:
A new chapter for SA
In the April issue, I reflected on South Africa’s election and the prospect of citizens seizing the opportunity for change after 30 years of democracy. And indeed, the general election in May ushered in a seismic shift in the political landscape and the peaceful formation of a centrist Government of National Unity (GNU).
While coalition politics can be unstable, the GNU, with an agenda to stimulate economic growth and job creation, injected a new sense of hope and fuelled a positive rally in the rand. The new finance minister has indicated that investment in infrastructure will be prioritised, while the new home affairs minister announced the remarkable clearing of ID and Visa backlogs in a short space of time. There is also optimism that South Africa may soon be removed from the international finance “grey list” and may even earn a sovereign risk upgrade.
There are also broader grounds for confidence that SA has turned a corner. Devastating electricity loadshedding was abruptly suspended in May this year and some state capture corruption cases are finally winding their way through the legal system. South Africa’s international standing will also receive a boost when it assumes the presidency of the influential G20 in December and hosts the G20 summit in 2025. The timing is fortuitous, providing an extraordinary opportunity for the country to showcase its leadership on the global stage.
Closer to home, Wits continues to thrive. In recent years a plethora of major new infrastructure projects have been made possible through generous donations including the R250 million Wits Brian and Dorothy Zylstra Sports Complex, R100 million expansion to the Wits Roy McAlpine Burns Unit at Baragwanath Hospital, R75 million Wits Anglo American Digital Dome, R40 million dental clinical skills and Prosthodontics
Peter Maher Director of Alumni Relations
laboratories, R25 million refurbishment and equipping of the Zola Wits Dental Clinic, and the R38 million Wits
Student support has also received a boost with R200million raised from the sale and development of the University’s Frankenwald Estate near Sandton being put into an endowment to support the academic project and talented students and a $1 million per annum donation in perpetuity to support accountancy students. So far, R1,2 billion in student funding has been given to 23 118 students for the 2024 academic year, of which R712million was NSFAS funding for 9 065 students.
However, despite a more positive outlook, universities currently face immense financial challenges. Shrinking budgets due to years of economic stagnation, the high cost of providing higher education and rising student debt despite increased funding for students has placed universities under financial pressure.
To address this, Wits is increasingly embarking on new initiatives to expand sources of third stream income such as consolidating Wits’ short course offerings into a single business entity, WitsPlus PTY Ltd and the launch of the Wits Innovation Fund that will provide early-stage funding for Wits start-up companies, spinouts and commercialisation efforts of Wits research and intellectual property.
We may never afford a lazy river for students, but Wits is committed to ensure it preserves a legacy of providing a world class education with the ongoing support of alumni and the donor community. Confidence in Wits is influenced by confidence in South Africa. With so many positive indicators on the horizon, there is reason to believe the tide is turning. There is hope that we are back on a path of growth, making it a good time to invest in the country and University. ■
Stay in touch: Please share your news and remember to update your contact details. Please email letters to alumni@wits.ac.za
You forgot about Dancing Dave!
I loved your articles about the Comrades Marathon in the 1970s.
We used to follow it every year on the radio as there was no TV yet. I seconded one of my friends in the early Comrades Marathons where you still had to meet the runners every few miles by car, so that they could have a drink.
The one well-known runner that was not mentioned was David “Dave” Wright (BA 1974).
that while he could scarcely hobble at the finish...his (Dave’s) gymnastic display was always worth at least a 9.75 for the Olympic floor exercise.
Dave was a member of Wits Choir, where I got to know him. His brother Roddy (BCom 1969, CTA 1972) was also in Wits Choir with us. He was also a member of Choral Society which used to produce annual operettas (Many of them were by Gilbert and Sullivan.) The following information about him was found in Wikipedia:
“The Comrades Marathon is the event in which Dave Wright established his reputation as a serious ultramarathon runner and etched his name into the lore of South African running as Dancing Dave Wright with his finishing line routine. He won five gold medals between 1977 and 1982, with a personal best placing of second, and completed 10 races. For both these achievements he has earned his Comrades Marathon number of 2390 in perpetuity, a green number.
“However, what sets him apart from all other Comrades runners was his habit of finishing at the front of the field of the 90 km race with a ‘waltz’ and a cartwheel over the line, something that all-time race-win record holder, Bruce Fordyce, recently placed as number four on his list of 10 Best Comrades Moments, writing
“His routine would begin approximately 50 metres out from the finishing line, when he would hold his arms out to his sides at shoulder height while alternately swinging one leg behind the other and continuing to run. Just before the finish he would launch into a cartwheel that took him across the line. In 1978 he cartwheeled over the line in 2nd position directly into the formally dressed lady mayor of Durban.”
Caroline Christie (BSc 1970, BSc Hons 1972, MSc 1983), New York
My brief moment of fame
I so enjoyed the article on “Wits runners” in the April edition of the Wits Review by Heather Dugmore. It brought back memories of my running days at Wits in the 1970s and 1980s.
In the 1982 Comrades, when I reached the halfway mark, I was told that Bruce Fordyce had just come in to win the race in record time. I managed to finish in 10hrs 55minutes to get a bronze medal. The cut-off time then was 11hrs.
There was a celebration party at Wits the month after the race. Bruce obviously was celebrated as one of the best ultra-marathon runners in the world – I think he was best.
I also received an award from the Wits team for being the last Witsie to finish the race that year. I was given
the “wooden spoon” for my effort, with applause from all the runners at the event. That was my claim to fame in the 1982 Comrades – there were at least 30 runners from Wits that year.
Thank you for the Wits Review, which I read from cover to cover. It is a great magazine; as is Wits – a great university.
Professor Emeritus Des Pantanowitz (BSc 1965, MBBCh 1968)
WHAT ALUMNI SAY VIA SOCIAL MEDIA
Who can forget 2005 NYC marathon finish? Paul Tergat beating Hendrick Ramaala by less than a second. No wonder he still wants to beat the East Africans. Andrew Maggs ****
More of these stories must be told, especially since most people solely rely only on running… Hendrick Ramaala the legend! Wandisile Nongodlwana
****
One of the best distance runners in the world. Frith van der Merwe was and remains a great champion Allen Christopher MacKenzie ****
I just loved how Caroline Cherry ran hills effortlessly, the smile she always wore made running look interesting. She bulldozed the Russian domination and gave hope to South Africa ladies. She flattened all the un-runnable hills so that her successors can cruise nicely. Mduduzi Khumalo
Graduates from my year were a classy bunch
Readers may be interested to know of the remarkable career trajectories of four graduates of my medical school class of 1984. All have, and continue, 40 years on, to impact the world for the good of society. Another possibly unique achievement is that three of these classmates were awarded Rhodes scholarships.
First is my student partner of four years: Professor Rhian Touyz (BSc 1980, BSc Hons 1981, MBBCh 1984, MMed1986, PhD1992): She is a clinician-scientist who completed a post-doctoral fellowship at the Clinical Research Institute of Montreal (CRIM) in 1996 and then progressed up the scientific/academic ladder to become Staff Scientist and Professor in the CRIM. In 2005 she was recruited to the Kidney Research Centre, Ottawa Hospital Research Institute, University of Ottawa, where she was the Canada Research Chair in Hypertension Tier 1, until 2011 when she was recruited to the University of Glasgow to direct ICAMS for 10 years.
Today she is the Executive Director and Chief Scientific Officer
of the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre, Dr Phil Gold Chair in Medicine and Professor in Family Medicine, McGill University, Montreal in Canada.
Second is Trevor Mundel (BSc 1983, BSc Hons 1985, MBBCh 1984), who studied mathematics, logic, and philosophy as a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University, and he earned a PhD in mathematics at the University of Chicago.
Today he is President of Global Health at The Gates Foundation in Seattle and leads the foundation’s efforts to develop high-impact interventions against the leading causes of death and disability in developing countries. He manages the foundation’s disease-specific research and development investments in HIV, tuberculosis, malaria, pneumonia, enteric and diarrheic diseases, and neglected tropical diseases.
Third is Jonny Broomberg (MBBCh 1984) who read for a PPE (philosophy, politics, and economics) at Balliol College, Oxford while on a Rhodes Scholarship. He subsequently completed MSc and PhD
degrees in Health Economics at the University of London.
Today he is CEO of Vitality Health International and Global Head of Health Insurance for the Discovery Group, based at the London office. He has been a senior leader in Discovery for just under two decades and serves on the group executive committee, and on the boards of Vitality Global Inc, Discovery Health (South Africa), and Vitality Global in the US.
Finally, Stephen Tollman (BSc 1979, MBBCh 1984, MMed 1999), who studied public health at Harvard; philosophy, politics and economics (PPE) in Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar.
Today he is a Research Professor in the School of Public Health and Head of the School’s Health and Population Division in the Faculty of Health Sciences at Wits. He is a faculty member of the Harvard Center for Population & Development Studies. In 2023, the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health presented the Alumni Award of Merit to Stephen for his outstanding contributions to population-based health research across Africa.
Dr Jonathan Moch (BSc 1981, MBBCh 1984)
ABDULRAZAK GURNAH
Our shared humanity
Wits hosted the 22nd Nelson Mandela Annual Lecture delivered by Abdulrazak Gurnah on 28 September 2025 at the Wits Linder Auditorium in partnership with The Nelson Mandela Foundation. Gurnah was awarded the 2021 Nobel Prize for literature “for his uncompromising and compassionate penetration of the effects of colonialism and the fate of the refugee in the gulf between cultures and continents”. Under the theme of Our Shared Humanity, he asked: “What is important about literature? Let me say, to begin with, that the person who asks ‘what is the point of literature’ is not going to be satisfied with whatever answer you give him or her. That person has not considered how vital story, song and dance are, and have always been, to the very existence of a human community, not as ornaments or distraction, but as the acts that enable empathy and solidarity and self-recognition in a coeval atmosphere.”
Full lecture:
Wits Briefs
Relief for a burning need
A new wing in the Wits Roy McAlpine Burns Unit at the Chris Hani Baragwanath Academic Hospital officially opened on 26 August 2024, thanks to a R100 million donation from the Roy McAlpine Charitable Foundation and in partnership with the University and the Gauteng Department of Health. The donation has enabled 12 new ICU beds, a recovery room and new outpatient facility. There is also a new rehab space for speech therapy, occupational and physiotherapy. The unit is equipped for research and a skin substitutes
Boost for future accountants
Accounting students will receive a donation from an anonymous donor and alumnus of $1 million per annum from now into perpetuity. The donation was made in honour of Professor Margo Steele, who served as the first female head of school to the Wits School of Accountancy from 1987 to 1995. This impact was revealed at the renaming ceremony of the Wits School of Accountancy to the Margo Steele School of Accountancy on 18 July 2024.
Support for academic project
Wits sold the Frankenwald Estate land to the Bankenveld District City Development Company – a property consortium comprising property developers Eris Property Group and Calgro M3 on 18 September 2024. All proceeds from the sale and the future sale of residential and commercial sites will be placed into a special endowment fund. This will support the academic projects, including supporting talented students who qualify to study at Wits and who may not have the financial means to register.
Source: Wits News
8 SEPTEMBER 2024
SOCIALS
The long-standing Wits tradition of Founders’ Tea took place on 8 September at the Gavin Relly Green, West Campus, to celebrate alumni who had graduated more than 40 years ago. Over 400 guests were in attendance on the warm Spring morning as Alumni Relations welcomed the class of 1984 to their first tea.
Vice-Chancellor and Principal, Professor Zeblon Vilakazi (MSc 1994, PhD 1998) shared recent developments in areas of research and partnerships with the broader community in South Africa and abroad. He noted recent alumni achievements as well as generous donations received towards the University’s projects.
Professor Glenda Gray (MBBCh 1986), chief scientific officer and past president of the South African Medical Research Council, held guests in rapt attention, reflecting on Wits’ rich journey “to becoming human”, alongside her
family’s own journey with the institution.
She mentioned the discovery of the Taung Child, the fossilised skull of young Australopithecus africanus, brought to the attention of Professor Raymond Dart by a young anatomy student, Josephine Jackson, née Salmons (BSc Hons 1926) exactly 100 years ago in 1924. Professor Dart published Australopithecus africanus: The Man-Ape of South Africa 40 days later and it became among Nature’s top 10 most cited papers of all time.
Around the same time that Mrs Ples was being blasted out of the Sterkfontein Caves, Prof Gray’s father, Ralph Vincent Gray (BSc Eng 1951), enrolled at Wits to study mechanical engineering. That would result in her family “moving through mines in South Africa from hot-as-hell Kuruman, to Stilfontein to Boksburg”, where she was born.
“My father was not from a rich family and not from an educated family, so when he matriculated, he cycled all the way to Durban, to find his vagabond father to ask for financial support for his studies. As there was no money, his aunt, a nurse, lent him the money to come to Wits. He used to scavenge for empty bottles on campus to get the deposits to buy food,” she said.
Around the same time that scientist activist Prof Phillip Tobias (BSc 1946, BSc Hons 1947, MBBCh 1950, PhD 1953, DSc honoris causa 1994) published his influential article in the Journal of Anthropology in 1970 titled “Brainsize, grey matter and race – fact or fiction?”, her older brother Vincent Myles Gray (BSc 1976, PhD 1984) started studying biological science at Wits. She said “he infused a political awareness and activism in me as a teenager that matured when I studied medicine.”
Prof Gray reinforced how Wits scientists have
always been part of significant breakthroughs and are once again at the forefront of a possible HIV vaccine discovery.
She said that Wits’ future endeavours would look to “the quantum community – to build advance weather and climate models, accelerating drug delivery to fight disease, building un-hackable data security. Physics will contribute to this in a myriad of ways.”
There were many familiar faces, including the oldest founder on the day, 96-year-old David Lopatie (BCom 1950, CTA 1953) and Dr Solomon Lefakane (BSc Eng 1961), who was the first black civil engineer to graduate from Wits. Guests enjoyed sharing memories of time on campus. Lisa Tonini (BA 1983, LLB 1985) said she had memories of Piet Koornhof’s visit to campus in 1981 and the flag being burnt. “I came from a close-knit family and Wits opened my eyes to the problems of the real world.” ■
Gray in rapt attention
Glenda
96-year-old
SPOTTED AT FOUNDERS’ TEA 2024
To see more pictures, go to our Flickr page Flickr: https:// www.flickr. com/photos/ witsalumni/
Pradip and Sarojben Modi
David Lopatie
Dr Judy and Melvyn Jaye
Peter Wentworth
Elizabetha and Professor Mervyn King
Munyane Mophosho and Rosemary Matlala
Malcolm Purkey and Kate Turkington
Mangaliso Mdhlela and Odette Ramphomane
Dr Judy Dlamini, Moira Jaquet-Briner, Professor Zeblon Vilakazi, Mark Lamberti and Isaac Shongwe
Wynand and Yolande Dreyer, Nic Meyer and Veronique Parkin
Audrey Berkowitz, Shirley Shochot, Estelle Sher and Rita Shenker
Dr Solomon Lefakane
Reeva Forman and Bev Goldman
Fatima Vawda
Professor Rosemary Crouch Inset: as drummie, Rag 1958
Photos: Vivid Images
Wits Alumni Relations held a webinar with the Executive Chairperson of the Takealot Group, Mamongae Mahlare, (BSc Eng 1997) on 31 July 2024 on the topic “The e-commerce landscape in South Africa”. The discussion was well attended by around 300 alumni and moderated by Mills Soko, Professor of International Business and Strategy at Wits Business School.
Mahlare charmed guests with her candour, initially sharing about her childhood and growing up in rural Limpopo: “At the time we didn’t have electricity in the house, nor indoor plumbing. You grow up with a sense of freedom, adventure and learning to be independent quite young.”
Mahlare was appointed as the CEO of the company in October 2021 and has had a front row seat in
the growing e-commerce industry. “We must think beyond the company perspective to a broader country perspective.
“We’re still sitting at 4% to 5% of the total retail. There’s massive room for e-commerce in South Africa to grow.” ■
SAVE THE DATE
16 NOVEMBER 2024
Wits Alumni Relations invites you to experience INIFINITE POSSIBLITIES at the new Wits Anglo American Digital Dome, East Campus on Saturday 16 November 2024 from 3pm. Enquiries: events.alumni@wits.ac.za
WITS LAW MASTERCLASS
August 2024 28 August 2024
Kgomotso Mufamadi (BA 2006, LLB 2009, LLM 2011), President of Wits Convocation, and representatives from the Wits Convocation Exco invited graduates from the School of Law to attend a masterclass for young alumni in the legal profession. A panel of senior legal professionals shared their experiences, providing tips and advice for navigating the profession in the Chalsty Auditorium on West Campus.
LtoR: Hloni Mokeona, Director at Malan Scholes Attorneys; Adv Amelia Rawhani-Mosalakae, Senior Specialist Online Legal & Regulatory at MTN SA; Tshidiso Ramogale, Advocate of the High Court and member of the Johannesburg Bar; Manchadi Kekana, partner at ENS; Tumi Sole, Chief Legal Officer at Moja TV Channels; Kgomotso Mufamadi, President of Convocation.
REUNIONS
MECH ENG CLASS OF 1964
APRIL 2024
The mechanical engineering class of 1964 held a 60th anniversary reunion lunch at the Wits Club on 26 April 2024. Attending the lunch were (L to R): Standing: Edgar Bradley, Alistair Moffat, Martin Pomeroy, Trevor Dunstan and John Sheer. Sitting: Geof Pallister, Quentin Kirkby, Jurgen Deist and Colin Beyers.
Images: Justin Ho and Peter Maher
VANCOUVER
Vancouver
CANADA & US
JUNE 2024
The Director of Alumni Relations, Peter Maher, held alumni reunion events in Vancouver, Seattle, Portland, and Atlanta from 12 – 18 June 2024. These well-attended events were an opportunity to thank alumni for their generous support, promote the establishment of local city chapters, and strengthen alumni connections to Wits and to fellow Witsies. The Seattle event was hosted by local convenors Dr Wally and Bernice Kegel and the Atlanta event by Dr Colin Richman. Also attending the events were Kendal Makgamathe, external stakeholder relations manager at Wits and Nooshin Erfani, the University’s representative in the US. The events generated a very positive atmosphere with new connections and friendships being made and many guests expressing renewed desire and interest in visiting South Africa and Wits.
If you would like to convene a local alumni chapter in your city, please contact alumni@wits.ac.za.
Jane and John Bacsa pose with Jeff Kalwerisky in Atlanta
Alumni enjoy a dinner at the DoubleTree by Hilton in Portland
Guests at the reunion event in Seattle
Colleen and Colin Richman in Atlanta
Below: (L to R) Wally and Bernice Kegel pose with Phoebe Barnard and John Bowey in Seattle
RESEARCH
How bad is the air?
Air quality has become one of the most important public health issues in Africa. Professor Bruce Mellado, from the Collider Particle Physics at Wits and the iThemba Laboratories for Accelerator Based Sciences, launched the South African Consortium of Air Quality Monitoring in June 2024 with a team of multidisciplinary scientists and policy makers. Using sensors, Internet of Things and Artificial Intelligence, they created the first cost-effective air quality monitoring system in South Africa and called it Ai_r. There are only 130 big air quality measuring stations in
Source: The Conversation
South Africa, which only measure the air quality in the vicinity of the station. There’s a need for cost-effective, dense networks made up of Ai_r systems set up all around these stations, to measure air quality in a much wider area. The vision is to place tens of thousands of these devices all over South Africa. “We really need to measure pollution and find out just how bad it is so that mitigating strategies can be designed that target problem areas very efficiently. The goal is to improve air quality for people who are most affected by air pollution,” says Prof Mellado.
Communities on the outskirts of Mooidraai township near the Lethabo Power Station live under a cloud of emissions from the coal-powered facility operated by Eskom. The air in the Vaal Triangle is so contaminated that it regularly registers the highest concentration of microscopic emissions on the planet.
NQWEBA METERORITE
‘Just
a stone that fell from the sky’
On 25 August 2024, nine-year-old Eli-zé du Toit saw a dark rock fall from the sky and land near a tree in the garden while sitting on her grandparents’ porch in Nqweba, in the Eastern Cape. The rock, black and shiny on the outside with a light grey, concrete-like interior, was still warm when she picked it up. Scientists Professor Roger Gibson Vonopartis (BSc 2016, BSc Hons 2017, PhD 2021) from the Wits School of Geosciences have since examined the Nqweba Meteorite, as it has been provisionally named. Nqweba has been linked to one of the larger bodies in the asteroid belt, which is between Jupiter and Mars. This newest find is what’s known as an achondrite breccia. “We see a rock that doesn’t have a lot of iron in it, which tells us that it was near the surface of a body that essentially went through the same history as Earth, but did it much quicker before it was broken up and now those pieces are coming to us,” Prof Gibson told CGTN Africa. “We’re looking right back to our distant past to about 4.56 to 4.57 billion years ago when our solar system was born.”
Sources:
How far away was the Nqweba meteorite’s entry into Earth’s atmosphere witnessed?
The furthest report the scientists received of someone observing the incident was from Ceres, over 600km away from where fragments were spotted. The explosion released energy equivalent to 92 tonnes of dynamite being detonated and resulted in a massive noise.
The main mass of the Nqweba meteorite showing the black fusion crust and brecciated interior (light grey) with broken mineral and rock fragments. The main sample weighs less than 63 grams and is less than 4cm in diameter in size.
Images: Chanté Schatz
THE RHISOTOPE PROJECT
Giant task for tiny beads
The final stages of this research project aimed at protecting the rhino population came to fruition on 24 June 2014 when low doses of radioisotopes were inserted into 20 live black and white rhinos from the UNESCO Waterberg Biosphere Reserve. Professor James Larkin from the Wits’ Radiation and Health Physics Unit and his team carefully sedated the rhinos and drilled a small hole into each of their horns to insert the non-toxic radioisotopes (insert image). The rhinos were then released under the care of a crew that will monitor the animals on a 24-hour basis for the next six months.
In the first phase of the research project, Prof Larkin used stable, non-radioactive compounds and proved that there was no movement of the compound from the horn into the body or soft tissue of the animal. Prof Larkin and the team calculated the appropriate quantity of the radioisotope by using commuter modelling and lab-based measurements.
This tiny bead of radioactive material can help increase the detection of smuggled horns, increase prosecution success, reveal smuggling routes and deter end-user markets.
Source: Wits research / Images: Chanté Schatz
Main pic: Wildlife veterinarian, Dr Pierre Bester (left) and the Rhino Orphanage team monitors a sedated black rhino while Professor James Larkin (right) from Wits University prepares to insert radioisotopes into its horn.
Witsies with the Edge
Portia Malatjie
Molemo Moiloa and Nare Mokgotho
THE SOUTH AFRICAN PAVILION AT THE 60TH INTERNATIONAL ART EXHIBITION, LA BIENNALE DI VENEZIA
The Witsie duo Molemo Moiloa (BA FA 2010, MA 2012) and Nare Mokgotho (BA FA 2010) started the Johannesburg-based artist collaborative MADEYOULOOK soon after graduating from Wits. “Our work has changed a lot over those 15 years,” says Moiloa.
“Our ideas have become more established and focused. We try to think about where knowledge comes from. We think about the sights of knowledge generation that respond to everyday social life. We like to work through archive, trying to connect how we see ordinary life today through historical trajectories: it may be oral histories, written archives, songs, storytelling,” she says.
Their commissioned sound installation Dinokana (2024) contributed to Quiet Ground, the title of the South African Pavillion at the 2024 Venice Biennale. “It is informed by about seven years of research we’ve been doing in the northern parts of the country in Mpumalanga and now the North West Province. It’s been self-driven research, on our own interests and it’s brought together in this piece,” she says.
Dinokana is named after a village in the North West province, and its people have gone through many cycles of displacement and used their indigenous knowledge to work with water and the land. The sound instilla tion is made up of a range of “found sound”, field recordings in the landscape, indigenous songs about making rain and bringing rain as well as interviews they’ve undertaken with land workers, practitioners and even family members from the area.
Quiet Ground explores being “foreign at home”. The exhibition has been curated by Dr Portia Malatjie (BA FA 2009, MA 2011), who is adjunct curator at the Tate, in London and a senior lecturer at the Michaelis School of Fine Art. The catalogue says the exhibition ties in themes to commemorate 30 years of democracy in South Africa and “celebrates how the land quietly grounds us and eagerly proclaims gratitude for its generous capacity to absorb our trauma that is entrenched in centuries of violation.”
Other Witsies involved in the overall project include Nabeel Essa (BAS 1998, BArch PG 2000), director of Office 24/7 Architecture,
Dr Portia Malatjie
Molemo Moiloa and Nare Mokgotho
LISTEN NOW
John Lazar
PRESIDENT
OF THE ROYAL ACADEMY OF ENGINEERING
Global technology pioneer and investor Dr John Lazar (BSc 1982, BSc Hons 1983) has been confirmed as President of the Royal Academy of Engineering. He graduated from Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar with a master’s in computation and a doctorate in history, after his undergraduate degree in computer science at Wits.
Dr Lazar is a software engineer and widely experienced business leader who is focused on combining technology and entrepreneurship to generate lasting positive impact. He is the co-founder, general partner, and a limited partner at Enza Capital, which backs founders and teams using technology to solve large and meaningful problems across Africa.
For the past seven years, he has been a judge and mentor for the Academy’s Africa Prize for Engineering Innovation, which trains and backs early-stage African engineering companies. He has also spent many years working on tech-related non-profit initiatives in Africa, especially building “digital blacksmiths” and maker labs. He has been an active angel investor and technology start-up mentor in the UK and Africa, with more than 40 individual pre-seed/seed investments.
Beyond engineering, he is passionate about hiking, running, art (his wife is a practising artist), tinkering on his 3D printer and Raspberry Pi, and Arsenal football club.
Source: Royal Society of Engineering
Peter Sarnak
2024 SHAW PRIZE FOR MATHEMATICAL SCIENCES
Professor Peter Sarnak (BSc 1974, BSc Hons 1975, DSc honoris causa 2014) received the prestigious award for his development of “the arithmetic theory of thin groups and the affine sieve, by bringing together number theory, analysis, combinatorics, dynamics, geometry and spectral theory”. He is one of the world’s leading mathematical scientists and is currently Gopal Prasad Professor in the School of Mathematics at the Institute for Advanced Study and the Eugene Higgins Professor of Mathematics at Princeton University in the United States. The committee praised Prof Sarnak's “original and deep vision” which has had a “profound impact” on numerous areas of study.
Prof Sarnak was born in Johannesburg, completing his BSc degree at Wits in 1974 and was awarded the Herbert Le May Prize for applied mathematics and the William Cullen Medal for the best graduate in the Faculty of Science in 1974. He went on to
complete his BSc honours in pure mathematics and was awarded the Unico Chemical Company Gold Medal for the best honours student in the science faculty in 1975. He moved on to complete his PhD at Standford in 1980. After he received an honorary doctorate from Wits in 2014 he said: “I owe much of where I am today to Wits. I stepped onto this great campus in the early 70s, a naïve 18-year-old. Thanks to my teachers and fellow students, the next four years opened my eyes to the world around me from the political to the scientific. Wits transformed me for good!
“The exceptional faculty at Wits introduced me to modern mathematical sciences and I was immediately taken by abstract mathematics – its beauty and the powerful reasoning which allows us to tackle many concrete problems whose solutions lie well below the surface. This quickly became my passion and it remains so to this day.”
Above: Mathematician Peter Sarnak (second left) says the 10 years he has spent developing the arithmetic theory of thin groups and the affine sieve has been a collective effort involving many other people.
Image: Maria O’Leary
June Fabian
2024 NSTF-SAMRC CLINICIAN-SCIENTIST AWARD
Dr June Fabian (BPharm 1990, MPharm 1994, MBBCh 1998, MMed 2008, PhD 2021) won the Clinical Scientist Award for her leadership and coordination of the African Research on Kidney Disease (ARK) Consortium. She is the research director at Wits Donald Gordon Medical Centre, as well as a co-lead of the clinical platform at Wits’ ru ral campus, Wits-Agincourt. The research produced by ARK has demonstrated that equations used to estimate kidney function in many African countries are inadequate and unsci entific. “Most of our learning and teaching of kidney disease in Africa was informed by research done elsewhere. This has compromised our understanding of how we diagnose it, how we treat it and how widespread it is in African populations,” she says. the guidance of Dr Fabian, ARK seeks to determine the most accurate way to mea sure kidney function and estimate chronic kidney disease prevalence in African populations. This collaborative effort spans research excellence cen tres in Malawi, South Africa, and Uganda, with ties to the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in the UK. She says: “My work is only possible because of so many people in so many ways, for which I am deeply grateful.”
Professor of Physical Geography in the School of Geography, Archaeology and Environmental Studies, Professor Jennifer Fitchett (BSc Hons 2012, MSc 2013, PhD 2015) won the 2024 NSTF-SAMRC Communication Award for her involvement in both communicating science to the public and training early career researchers in science communication.
Loyiso Nongxa
HONORARY DOCTORATE IN SCIENCE
“There are no easy and obvious answers to the questions that really matter,”
Professor Loyiso Nongxa, former Vice-Chancellor and Principal of Wits, told graduands after he was awarded a degree of Doctor of Science honoris causa in July 2024. “Don’t be afraid to tackle the real difficult problems since their solutions may lead to important breakthroughs. Always doubt anyone who has easy explanations to complex matters or oversimplifies issues that you see as difficult. Finally, whenever you can, lend a helping hand to anyone that would benefit from your assistance. You didn’t get to be where you are without the helping hand of someone else.”
Professor Nongxa was honoured by Wits for his “intellectual contribution to mathematics, his leadership in higher education and research development and for his dedication in enabling young people to access higher education and for advancing the societal good.”
Sources: Wits News and NSTF
Grand place to meet
The grand piazza in front of the Great Hall is an iconic space at Wits where generations of students have traditionally gathered in celebration or protest. The piazza, known as the MacCrone Mall, was completed in 1967 under the leadership of Professor Ian Douglas MacCrone (LLD honoris causa 1961), who was ViceChancellor from 1963 – 1968. The design of the decorative brick paving was done by an unnamed senior lecturer in the department of architecture. Prior to its construction, the little used road, known as Main Drive, ran through campus in front of the Great Hall. It was initially thought that graduation ceremonies may be held on the piazza in preference to the Great Hall because of its larger size.
Above: MacCrone Mall piazza, 1967
Below: 2024
Images: Journal of the SA Brick Association (1967, Issue 1) and Brett Eloff
The Universe on Stage
An infinite backdrop
Take a physicist and a composer; put them on a stage with a piano, a lit-up papier-mâché moon and the biggest story to tell about us humans, and you have The Universe on Stage.
Two Witsies are the duo behind a show that blends an inspired science talk with cinematic visuals and live original musical accompaniment.
Dr Luca Pontiggia (BSc 2012; BSc Hons 2014; MSc 2015; PhD 2018) and Yasheen Modi’s (BSc 2012; BSc Hons 2013) collaboration for the show got its start two years before they even stepped onto the stage together. The year was 2020 and their paths crossed at the workplace.
Though they were students at Wits at about the same time and turned out to have mutual friends, it was meeting as employees at Discovery Health that brought them into each other’s orbit.
Pontiggia is a senior data scientist and Modi is a senior actuary in their respective divisions. They worked together on an in-house innovation competition and took top honours in 2020. Judges lauded them as “having a strong blend of logical and creative thinking”.
The company competition sparked what is now their live science and music show. They now have a registered company and since November 2022 have celebrated 30 sold-out
Left: Physicist Dr Luca Pontiggia Right: Composer Yasheen Modi
Image: Brett Eloff
When the worlds of two Witsies collided in 2019, their personal passions for science and music would become a thing of stars and possibility.
By Ufrieda Ho
shows at The Bioscope, an independent cinema in Joburg’s Milpark. The Universe on Stage is a showcase of the things they both excel in and love doing outside their nine-to-five lives.
Pontiggia rewinds to 2019. He had just joined Discovery. It was also the year the Event Horizon Telescope released images of a black hole at the centre of the galaxy M87. Awed and fascinated, he emailed the photos to everyone in his team and shared his excitement and wonder about space.
“My boss, who was running the innovation competition, was on that email list and after seeing what I shared he asked me to be a guest speaker at the annual conference, and to talk about black holes.
“From that experience of being on stage I realised how much I enjoyed being in front of a live audience and telling stories to engage with people,” he says.
Meeting Modi and working on their winning project would happen in 2020. But that same year Covid-19 also happened, bringing the world to an anxious standstill.
“In the months after lockdown I was walking around 44 Stanley [in Milpark] one day. As I got to The Bioscope I had an idea to approach the owner and ask if he might be interested in a science and music talk.
“I had loved going to the Science and Cocktail evenings [science talks held in the relaxed environment of a jazz and dinner club and told to a non-science audience] at The Orbit in Braamfontein in the years before the club closed down. I was thinking about something along those lines. The owner said he loved the idea and we should give it a go,” Pontiggia says.
His first performance kicked off in November 2022. The Universe on Stage has gone on to be the most successful show The Bioscope has hosted in all its years of business.
For the first shows Pontiggia relied on recorded music, but he knew the drama and storytelling could be enhanced by live music accompaniment. And the person he thought of immediately was Modi.
He knew Modi was an accomplished pianist. Modi took up the instrument when he was eight years old, to try to impress his father. And he did so when he played by ear his dad’s favourite song after just a short few hours at the keys.
Modi says: “We started off with me playing Hans Zimmer’s Interstellar and music from Pirates of the Caribbean but then I just started playing around and composing my own music.”
His compositions have created a deeper engagement with their audience.
“We were always about having fun while we were doing these shows,” says Modi, “but after we sold out
a few shows we thought we should carry on. So we did, and we still kept selling out, and we still have fun. There is a rush about a live performance, and you don’t know exactly how each show will turn out.
“Every time, though, we have people tell us how much they enjoyed elements in the show, and the audience’s enthusiasm brings out a child-like wonder for me. I feel like a pioneer, doing something like this in the way that we’re doing it.”
They have also taken the show to schools. Modi and Pontiggia say it’s the enthusiasm and curiosity about space, about the universe and about how and why human life is set against this infinite backdrop, that gets them every time.
“Kids will come up to us and just want to talk about space. Some of them will know things that even Luca, as a physicist, doesn’t know about. They have so many questions, so much excitement, and they’re so intrigued,” says Modi.
For Pontiggia the magic is in the questions, the curiosity, the way scientific endeavour pushes the limits of exploration and adds to the tapestry of what it means to be human.
“The shows are science-anchored experiences,” he says. “But they are also an emotional journey and they have a philosophical narrative. Science is not separate from the human experience. And science is a language that can articulate that experience.
“We can start talking about how uncertainty is amazing in science, but uncertainty is amazing in your life, as well. And exploring this with openness can help us have a lot more compassion for the world around us.”
The Universe on Stage is the pair’s side hustle, but they commit to it fully because they say it also feeds their entrepreneurial drive. They spend long weekend hours and after-work hours creating and refining content, rehearsing and promoting and marketing their shows.
This spring they took their show from The Bioscope, which seats around 40, to the 1000-seater Joburg Theatre. Their Hidden Giants performance is an extended version of their original talk on black holes.
It was a leap of faith to the much larger venue. But Pontiggia says: “I see our shows as a way to spark curiosity for more people, to recognise that a willingness to learn and to explore is our greatest resource. These talks are an invitation for people to share in the wonder of the universe.
“And we have big plans for our shows – like the Royal Albert Hall, or the new Wits Digital Dome.”
They are big dreams and big ideas indeed, but the pair is talking about the universe, after all – where big knows no limits. ■
What a treat
The
Bioscope
aims to be the space for building a community and creating a culture
Joburg’s one true independent cinema has clocked up 14 years in business, making The Bioscope a city institution settling into its own history and traditions even as it looks to what comes next.
The Bioscope was founded by two ex-Witsie drama and film and TV students, Russell Grant (BADA 2009) and Darryl Els (BA Hons 2009). Grant remains the owner.
“Darryl’s thesis looked at the potential of independent cinema in Joburg and we both just knew we had to do something like that,” he says.
Grant says 15 years ago, urban developers were remaking downtown Joburg as Maboneng. Craft beer and artisanal markets were nascent trends and The Bioscope fit in perfectly on Fox Street in the Maboneng precinct.
“We did want to do things differently, like being able to have your pizza and beer in the cinema,” he says of pioneering an alternative cinema experience. The seats were (and still are) a mish-mash of repurposed car seats. They introduced movie nights as events. They started screenings of Friday the 13th every Friday the 13th, held Noodle Box film nights of kung fu flix and noodles – in a box, and even put on outdoor cinema nights.
“The thing about my time at Wits was that
it gave me a much broader perspective on the world. I started looking more around the world of film, as opposed to specifically wanting to be on set, or wanting to make films,” says Grant.
Since 2020 The Bioscope has found its “renaissance” home at 44 Stanley in Milpark. Grant says building afresh in this new location fits his brand and a city that constantly evolves but is not short on creativity, collaboration or the spirit to try again.
“Whenever someone speaks about building a community or creating a culture for something, then I want The Bioscope to be the space for that. The Universe on Stage is a perfect example of this. It isn’t cinema but it’s a smart show that adds so much value. People are coming out on a Friday night to learn about science and the paradoxes of space –what a treat,” says Grant.
Expect the old traditions but refreshed, like Totoro appearances and dress-up nights for Japanese anime film festivals or screenings of JoJo Rabbit as annual commemorations of the end of World War II. But the 47-seater cinema space has newer traditions too like knit-ins, comedy nights and, of course, The Universe on Stage. For Grant it’s about keeping cinema alive – The Bioscope’s way. ■
Above: Russell Grant says building afresh in this new location (Milpark) fits his brand and a city that constantly evolves but is not short on creativity, collaboration or the spirit to try again.
Image:
Brett Eloff
Dr Palesa Nqambaza (PhD 2023), offers a perspective on the allure of amapiano for young South Africans, and the reasons behind its global footprint
Gallo/Getty Images
Lungelihle Zwane aka Uncle Waffles performs at the Sziget Festival 2023, in Budapest, Hungary
WHAT WITSIES SAY
With so little, my people do so much,”
South African artist Cassper Nyovest reflects in the documentary titled This is Amapiano, which captures the rise of amapiano music – a genre that has become a global sensation. Like kwaito, born in the townships when Black youth blended slow-tempo house music, deep basslines, and cheeky lyrics, creating a soundtrack for post-apartheid Black youth culture, amapiano is forging new paths. It combines the sounds of kwaito, house, and jazz, among others, distinguished by its signature log drum. What began in the impoverished townships of Gauteng has now earned worldwide critical acclaim. It is a soundtrack of good vibes, from Phuza Thursday to Mogodu Monday, amapiano facilitates drinking rituals at famous pubs all around South Africa.
All of this unfolds at a crucial juncture – 30 years into democracy and
the year of South Africa’s seventh general election, a milestone many have dubbed “2024 is our 1994.” This slogan evokes a period in South African history when the apartheid regime was voted out and replaced by the Black majority party, the ANC, which symbolised the hopes, dreams, and aspirations of Black South Africans.
In the spirit of a peaceful transition and the goal of uniting a fractured society, a Government of National Unity was formed. This coalition included the ANC, the newly elected liberation movement that had just dismantled the apartheid regime, alongside the National Party, which had established the very same regime, and the Inkatha Freedom Party. Other smaller parties also joined this coalition; a medley that promised to cement reconciliation, unity and the rainbow nation, noticeable in the design of our national flag and anthem.
Thirty years later, like many popular amapiano tracks that breathe new life
“I prefer jazz, afro soul and house music... I find it a bit repetitive, a bit copy and paste. Once we found the log drum it was nice, but now everyone is trying to do the same thing. As a phenomenon and what it is doing for our country, that's what I appreciate about the genre. It has allowed us to have conversations about South African content and what it means to be South African. It’s placing us on a platform as a beautiful place with a vibrant culture. It has traversed spaces that we have not been able to as a country. I appreciate it for breaking boundaries in ways that a lot of people hoped and dreamed for.”
AWANDE DUBE (BA DA 2022), current master’s student
FUN AMAPIANO FACTS
into old melodies, the political landscape is being remixed, giving rise to a new version of the Government of National Unity – GNU 2.0. The electorate sent a clear message to the ANC in the 2024 general election, where the party won less than 40% of the vote for the first time since taking power in 1994. Faced with this setback, the ANC borrowed from the 1994 playbook and revived the spirit of the original Government of National Unity, inviting all political parties willing to participate in this second attempt. Indeed, with so little, my people do so much.
It is the amapiano generation that delivered this great blow to the ANC dominance that lasted 30 years. This is also the Fees Must Fall generation that called for the decolonisation of universities and called for for greater access to institutions of higher education. Coming out in numbers, they stood in long winding queues patiently, some for even over eight hours, to make a reality of the clarion call that “2024 is our 1994”. They are the architects of the renewed zeal that South Africa is witnessing today.
The fighting spirit and resilience of this generation are evident in many amapiano tracks. Take Dladla Thukzin’s hit iPlan, where, amid deprivation, the singer vows to a lover to find a hustle so they can live happily together. Other songs, like Imithandazo by Kabza De Small, are infused with prayers, remixing Enoch Sontonga’s Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika, a historical plea for God to protect Africa and free her children from colonial oppression. Meanwhile, tracks like Young Stunna’s Adiwele celebrate good times. Here, the singer urges the listener to seize a good life, asserting, angeke bayi
Left: Festival attendees dance during the Afro Nation Detroit 2024 Festival in Michigan
Above: Tyla performs onstage during the 2024 BET Awards in Los Angeles, California Below: Witsies dance amapiano style on the library lawns
Images: Gallo/Getty
vale yonke iminyango, nami ayangbiza amathousand (they cannot close all doors to us; money is calling me; our time for riches is near). He seals his call to action with the chant, adiwele, adiwele, adiwele (keep the drinks coming, let the drinks flow). The “they” Young Stunna refers to are the gatekeepers of a system riddled with cronyism and nepotism, keeping many young people who lack connections out of jobs and opportunities.
Amapiano is like the train that legendary jazz artist Hugh Masekela describes in one of his most popular songs, Stimela. A train travelling across Namibia and Malawi, from Lesotho and Botswana – carrying people from the hinterlands of Southern and Central Africa, both young and old, conscripted to groove. The amapiano train is fast paced and reaches lands further afield. It makes it to the US, where it serenades sold-out festivals, and crosses the Atlantic into Europe, with the Ama Fest in London –billed as the “biggest amapiano festival in the world.“ It continues to Afro Nation in Portugal, the largest festival celebrating African music genres like Afrobeats, hip-hop, and reggae, and penetrates Ibiza, Spain, the party capital of the world. Everywhere it goes, the amapiano train creates a stir, captivating the world and offering a glimpse of what it means to be South African – a people who do so much with so little.
Amapiano is also a reunion, a meeting place for South Africans (and other Africans) living in the diaspora whose umbilical cords connect to the land of gold and diamonds. The new Afropolitans, the ones that made it out. It is a space where community is built and fostered in foreign lands where many went in search of better prospects, fleeing the rampant corruption, high crime rates
Amapiano vibes at Afro Nation Portugal Top: Uncle Waffles
WHAT WITSIES SAY
ANGEL RANGATA
Third year law student
“My favourite artist is Kabza De Small. He is consistently good, and his songs carry a message that I can relate to. He makes
WHAT WITSIES SAY
NGWAKOANA PHALA
(BSc 2019, BSc Eng 2022), master’s student in engineering
My favourite song is iMpumelelo by Eemoh and Sam Deep. The lyrics and beat do the talking: “We fight for success and nothing else, we don’t fight with people/ If you hate us for trying, you hate us for no reason/ Let me take another step and look forward to the future/ Success you are calling, I hear you I’m listening.”
and unemployment that have come to deface a beautiful bountiful landmass. It is also a space of pride, where party goers wear bright hip outfits with traditional accents such as Ndebele beads whose patterns have been globally popularised by the legendary Dr Esther Mahlangu, or modernised versions of the Xibelani – a traditional Xitsonga skirt. All these represent the rich cultural heritage of the rainbow nation. It is also common to see the South African flag being flown at these concerts, in consort with flags of other African countries such as Lesotho or Ghana. A comradery that makes a bold declaration that amapiano belongs to all of us, and we are “The piano people” – a phrase that was used to title London’s most recent amapiano concert. ■
*Nqambaza is a post-doc research fellow at Wits and the University of Leeds
A Wits student tries to impress the girls with his amapiano moves
WHAT WITSIES SAY
KAMOGELO KUNGWENA
(BA 2024) journalism student and Wits Vuvuzela reporter
“It’s a genre I have grown to love. The fact that it is a uniquely South African sound that has travelled across the world is inspiring. I'm very excited to see how much further it can go. It’s very hard to pick a favourite, but at the moment, the song I play the most is 'Wadibusa' by Uncle Waffles.
WHAT WITSIES SAY
BONGIWE NGIDI
(BA Hons 2021), actor, radio host at Voice of WITS and director at Undiscovered Brand
“It’s a genre that taught me how to fall in love with music again. It makes me so proud because it all started in Pretoria and is now reaching the world. I love the sub-genres in it: you’ve got your spiritual, and then the more tribal, more commercial yanos. It’s so diverse and volatile… Scorpion Kings carried us through lockdown. The country was in state and yet people were still dancing. Amapiano does represent South Africa for who we are. It brings me so much life, so much healing and so much fun.”
In the first week of June 2024, Wits alumna Ofentse Pitse (BAS 2017, BAS Hons 2022) collaborated with one of the pioneering amapiano artists Kabelo Motha, aka Kabza De Small, in a sold-out event at the Lyric Theatre.
It was a unique blend of amapiano with a 33-piece symphony orchestra, which highlighted amapiano’s rhythmic versatility and log drum melodies.
Kabza, also referred to as the “king of amapiano”, enjoys a huge international and local fanbase and released a 15-minute track titled Chant, prior the concert. The song was streamed on Spotify more than 100 000 times within the first 24 hours of its release and became the number one song on South Africa’s Daily List. He said: “Amapiano is a genre that is here to stay, it’s a genre that has no bounds and the future can only be bigger and greater.”
Pitse, first featured in Wits Review in 2021, is the first black woman to own and conduct an orchestra. The 32-year-old is currently registered for master’s in
Kabza De Small, also referred to as the “king of amapiano”, enjoys a huge international and local fanbase
architectural studies and epitomises the “amapiano” generation who embrace collaborations, innovation and upending stereotypes.
She said Kabza’s approach to music inspired the idea of creating “an amapiano opera” that allowed her to reimagine his songs. Among them is a lullaby version of Nana Thula accompanied by a choir and backed by violins and a saxophone.
“I want to do African works... imagine the juxtaposition of these classically trained musicians and these musicians who just feel by spirit, and we combine that,” Pitse said.
Her conducting style veers from the stern and she prefers to lead “with passion... to add that motherly, sensitive, very genuine” vibe. She said her career in classical music was not always her dream, rather“ a gift”, with her driving force to “advancing youth opportunities and inspiring women of colour.” ■
Sources: AP and Daily Maverick
Images: Red Bull
Everyone just knew...
In 2023, Ofentse Pitse led a 74-piece female orchestra in a rendition of Alicia Keys’ If I Ain't Got You alongside the Grammy award-winning artist for Netflix’s Queen Charlotte, a spinoff of the television period drama, which she described as “the greatest accomplishment” of her career.
“Conducting an all-female, especially an all-female of colour orchestra means that we are getting something right. From the very first day when we had our rehearsal, everyone just knew what they were there for, it just felt like we all had one spirit... And I believe that is because all of us wanted this moment to happen in our lifetime. It really felt as though we were riding on our ancestors’ backs because they didn’t get that opportunity in their lifetime [to experience] the things we are living right now.”
Ofentse Pitse
SABICA PARDESI
(BA FA 2018, PDM 2019, MM 2021)
Co-founder and COO of Bloo Money
Pardesi partnered with fellow Witsie Thulani Masebenza (BA 2017, PDM 2019) to develop an app that streamlines invoicing and payouts for businesses working with freelancers. She completed a master’s in digital business while working briefly at a crowdfunding startup. Although she is a fine arts graduate, she also has a postgrad diploma in business management from Wits Business School.
Your understanding of democracy Freelancers, or solopreneurs, people who work for themselves embody this concept. By using their skills and passions to contribute to society, they create opportunities for themselves. We started Bloo Money during COVID, when we saw there were so many creatives who did not have access to financial products. Their irregular income did not allow them to access a loan or give them an appropriate credit score. We are building an app which streamlines the invoicing and payouts process for businesses to work more efficiently with freelancers. When an invoice arrives, it is checked, approved and paid on a single dashboard so a freelancer knows exactly where in motion their invoice is. Through the app experience, we also believe we can create a learning
journey at every step. When a payment is overdue, you can send a nudge or when your income exceeds a limit, you are reminded about tax. Our mission is to give equal opportunities to those who are underrepresented and are brave enough to work for themselves.
A skill you wished you had learned at university
My university experience fed into other areas of my life. I always took initiative, and I was a risk-taker. I made the most amazing friends. I met Thulani while collaborating on a case competition for the consulting club! I even did a short course in HTML and CSS that helped me get started on app development. Building an app mirrors the artistic process—a constant cycle of iteration, thinking, and questioning, with each new feature akin to a thoughtful brushstroke on canvas.
What motivates you
There are two things, my own experience of being a freelancer, being paid late, not planning enough, fearing tax. Secondly, my family, grandparents, parents, siblings and my husband. They are the giants on whose shoulders I stand today. How can I make them proud? ■ YEARS
DEMOCRACY
30 years of Democracy Wits Review shines a spotlight on a few alumni finding solutions in South Africa now.
Your understanding of democracy Although democracy is, at one level, about a system of government, in my view, at the heart of democracy is a society that values its citizens – ensuring all of them have full access to basic human rights and opportunities to access the resources that will enable them to live a meaningful and dignified life.
A skill you wished you had learned at university University prepared me really well for my current role at OLICO. During my time at university, in addition to my academic work, I got involved, through student organisations and professional bodies, with various community and education projects which exposed me to diverse educational settings and to the people working and learning there. This deeply enriched and reality-tested my academic learning.
DR LYNN BOWIE
Director of OLICO Mathematics Education (PhD 2013)
OLICO is an NGO supporting South African pupils in mathematics. Dr Bowie’s taught mathematics at all levels from grade R to university level. This year the organisation received the 2024 NSTF-South32 NGO Award for its approach that makes maths accessible and enjoyable. Starting with just 22 students in Diepsloot, the organisation today supports over 5 000 students directly and reaches an additional 20 000 through partnerships. For the past five years, OLICO students have consistently scored in the top 20% of matric maths performers.
What motivates you
I have always been committed to helping make South Africa into a place where everyone can develop to their full potential and live a life of dignity. My love of mathematics and teaching meant it made sense to make my contribution in supporting mathematics education as too many of our South African learners still do not have access to the kind of quality mathematics education that will open pathways for them into scientific and technical careers. Although this sometimes seems like an impossible task, at OLICO I have the absolute privilege of working with a large group of very bright, committed and passionate young people who teach on our programme – it is these people who keep my motivation going and give me confidence in the future. ■
Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation
Blade Nzimande with Dr Lynn Bowie
Your understanding of democracy
In its simplest form, democracy is a system of government in which power is vested in the people. Our Constitution, in its preamble, calls on us to build “a society based on democratic values, social justice and fundamental human rights." This goes beyond only universal franchise or a system of democratic elections, and outlines an expansive vision of a society based on openness, freedom, and accountability, a society in which the rights of all people are realised and in which every person has a say in the decisions that affect their lives. I believe that the overriding task of government is to make sure that this vision, which is the true promise of democracy, is fulfilled.
A skill you wished you had learned at university
My time at Wits was deeply formative for me, and equipped me with knowledge and skills that I use in my role every day. It also exposed me to a rich, diverse, and intellectually stimulating community of people from widely different backgrounds, which is as important as the academic experience. The skill that I wish I had learned, but which perhaps
Saul Musker supports the delivery of strategic initiatives from the centre of government. He’s worked in the Presidency for the past five years and was central to Operation Vulindlela, a joint initiative of the Presidency and National Treasury to accelerate the implementation of structural reforms that support economic recovery. He triple-majored in international relations, French and English Literature and graduated cum laude. He was awarded both a Fulbright Scholarship and Rhodes Scholarship in 2017, taking up the latter to complete an MSc in Global Governance and Diplomacy at Oxford.
SAUL MUSKER
(BA 2016, BA Hons, 2017)
Director of strategy and delivery support in the Private Office of the President
can only be learned through experience, is how to get things done in an imperfect system – in other words, how to implement policy in the real world, which is never quite the same as in theory.
What motivates you
I am deeply committed to South Africa, and believe in our country's huge potential. As a young South African, I feel a strong sense of duty to contribute to building our democracy and improving the lives of its people. That is what keeps me going, even when our challenges seem steep. Our generation is the most educated, experienced, and innovative in South Africa’s history, and we bring a new perspective to our country’s challenges. We are a young democracy, a work in progress. And while that is often difficult and challenging, it is also exciting – it means that the future of our country is not yet written, and we get to be a part of writing that future and shaping the direction that it takes. I hope that more young people will enter public service, because government has unique levers to effect change – and we need talented public servants more than ever before. ■
TESSA DOOMS
(BA 2006, BA Hons 2007, MA 2010)
Director at the Rivonia Circle
Trained as a sociologist, development practitioner and political analyst, Dooms started her career in academia. She has worked in diverse sectors including government, NGOs and the private sector. The Rivonia Circle is a think-tank and platform where people can have conversations about social issues, engaging in politics beyond political parties. Some of the organisation’s functions include politics, democracy, governance, and activism. It also has a project called South Africa 2.0, which asks people to pick an issue and share what the best version of South Africa would look like if that issue was solved. In an interview with News24, she said: “That has become a transformative exercise I have experienced at a community level because it takes people, out of frustration and anger, to act. I have also learnt that we underestimate the ability of people to get things done.” She wants to be known for standing up and showing up for people to achieve a common cause. “I also want to be known as someone who tries, instead of making it the responsibility of others, to find solutions.” ■
ROBBIE BROZIN
Co-founder of Nando’s and a core member of JoziMyJozi (BCom 1984)
The JoziMyJozi movement has captured the imagination of businesses and civil society, igniting hope and instilling pride in Johannesburg. It enjoys the support and backing of some of the biggest local and international names in corporate South Africa, including Anglo American, Nando’s, FNB, Standard Bank, Investec, Absa and Microsoft. In August Duncan Wanblad (BSc Mech Eng 1989, GDE 1997), CEO of Anglo American, handed over the keys to the 42,000m² of their Marshalltown precinct — 45 Main Street — to Taddy Blecher (BSc 1989, BSc Hons 1994), an educational entrepreneur and co-founder of the Maharishi Invincibility Institute. This marked a symbolic phase of the JoziMyJozi initiative with the creation of an education hub, where plans are under development for Wits Business School to join Maharishi in the Marshalltown precinct. This initiative is also part of revitalising the transport network in Doornfontein that hasn’t been active for years, which was put through its paces when the Springboks and the All Blacks faced off on 31 August 2024 at Ellis Park Stadium.
Brozin carried the Olympic torch in July at the start of the Paris Olympic Games because of Nando’s diverse philanthropic work such as the inner city initiatives. “I found my courage to do that through the Constitution of South Africa,” he said in an interview at the time. ■
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Small, regular donations by alumni will give future generations a world-class education. Enhance the reputation of your Wits degree, change lives and show appreciation for the education you received. DONATE to the Wits Annual Fund at www.wits.ac.za/annualfund
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WHAT’S INSIDE? OUTSIDE
The Centre for the Less Good Idea
For the past eight years, a space at the edge of downtown Johannesburg has celebrated doubt. What can it teach us?
By Jacqueline Steeneveldt
The “stage” is an elevated platform in a brightly lit dance studio. There are two wooden chairs, arranged around a table on a Persian carpet, with a woman seated nearby. A pair of fancy men’s shoes have been placed neatly on the rug. Further back stands a water cooler as well as a giant basin laden with empty plastic glasses.
A diminutive woman with large thick-rimmed glasses starts reading over a microphone, offering instructions and directions from an unintelligible script or stack of papers. Meanwhile a man greets audience members as far back as the fourth row individually with a weak handshake and a burly “Dumelang” repeatedly.
Then he barks: “What is your name?”
“Zac” comes one reply.
“Zac, Zach, Zacharia. I knew a Zacharia once. He committed suicide,” the man says casually.
A woman from the audience is commandeered to the stage and asked to take over the reading from the manuscript or pile of papers: “To think deeply about performance, the body and forgotten stories…” she reads. One hears the words “intelligible madness” and “the performer as archivist, scavenger”.
Where should attention be focused?
The man starts howling, then singing, while the reader forges on: “…piercing a moment from an ordinary moment… alertness to something profound, clearing away the buried or forgotten and elements are transformed… nothing can be the same as that moment…”
Suddenly the cacophony stops. The man slowly drinks water from the cooler and takes the basin and a glass of water to the reader. She slowly pours the water while he wrings his hands.
It’s a bewildering experience.
And yet, here, in a refurbished warehouse on the periphery of the inner city of Johannesburg, at The Centre for the Less Good Idea, that seems precisely the point.
The Centre’s hosting an “Open Moment”, featuring new works-in-progress around the theme of rhythm, musicality, and the body. It gives audiences a unique experience of how the creative process works. Celebrated composer and choreographer Nhlanhla Mahlangu, a former master’s student at Wits, is the bellowing man from the skit. He’s asked senior lecturer
Image: Stella Olivier
Nhlanhla Mahlangu featured as actor, vocalist and dancer in William Kentridge’s “The Head and The Load”
Clockwise: Nhlanhla Mahlangu, William Kentridge and Bronwyn Lace at The Centre, Athena Mazarakis, during a workshop, artists of different ages from different disciplines collaborate at the Centre
in the Creative Writing Department at Wits Stacy Hardy process and “reflect” it back to him during the performance.
1970s, Mahlangu began his schooling during the national state of emergency in the 1980s. He experienced firsthand the conflicts involv ing the African National Congress, Inkatha Freedom Party, and the "Third Force" in the 1990s. Mahlangu is renowned for finding ways of using somatic responses, rhythm and emo tions to encourage reflection on difficult aspects of South Africa's history.
the context to what the audience just experienced: “This is an investigation, not a product… I am curious about the songs like: ‘Gijima! Hiya! Hiya!’; when it was sung for the first time. Someone didn’t sit and write it. We weren’t there. I am curious to find out what happens to the body when it gets into this mode of repetition, and it becomes an unconscious mantra and that it remains as a song. I am interested in songs as archive documents.
"I am interested in songs as archive documents."
Nhlanhla Mahlangu
Uncertainty, doubt and ambiguity are central methods of working at The Centre for the Less Good Idea
“I am interested in creating exercises, situa tions and moments by chants, like most of our struggle songs, our children’s songs, our work songs…I don’t know where I am,” he says. “This is one of many attempts that we could share with you.”
Uncertainty, doubt and ambiguity are cen tral methods of working at The Centre. Since its inception in 2017, founded by William Kentridge (BA 1977, DLitt honoris causa 2004) and Bronwyn Lace (BA FA 2005), it has grown organically to nurture over 800 artists across disciplines, many of whom are Wits alumni. The work that has come from it continues to garner praise, and to jolt audiences.
The name comes from a Setswana proverb: E a re ngaka kgolo go retelelwa, go alafe ngakana / If the good doctor can’t cure you, find the less good doctor.
Kentridge says: “Often, you start with a good idea. It seems crystal clear at first, but when you take it off the proverbial drawing board, cracks and fissures emerge, and they cannot be ignored. It is the process of following the secondary ideas, those ‘less good ideas’ coined to address the first idea’s cracks, that The Centre nurtures, arguing that in the act of playing with an idea, you can
Images: Zivanai Matangi
Image: Stella Olivier
recognise those things you didn’t know in advance but knew somewhere inside of you.”
A few days earlier I meet up with arts journalist David Mann (MA 2022) for a walkabout. He is one of the eight permanent members based at The Centre, working as its communications manager. He has the difficult task of writing about various workshops, performances, projects and exhibitions and recently published Once Removed (Botsotso 2024), a collection of short stories drawn from the undercurrents of the South African art world. “I am a mirror,” he says. “But I also give feedback. Part of my job is tracking, mapping and tracing input and credit accordingly.” He is tall, lithe and speaks quietly, so one must lean closer to hear over the din around us.
The corridors are swarming with a contingent of dancers from the US-based dance company Step Afrika! They’ve come to develop a new work ahead of their 30th anniversary performance at the Soweto Theatre with Vusi Mdoyi, who is founding director of a dance academy, VAP Dance Academy and Studios, that trains young people in Katlehong township. He is a central artist at The Centre who traces the everyday rhythms of work and life using pantsula. Mann says collaborations such as these are common, allowing a cross pollination of artists of different ages, from different communities, even continents, to work together.
The Centre branched out from Kentridge’s private workshop housed at Arts on Main in Maboneng since 2009. The building was origi nally built in 1911 as a bonded liquor store, but later served as the front offices of a construction company owned by D F Corlett, the master builder and mayor of Johannesburg in 1931 and 1932.
“Fox Street changes often,” says Mann. “Your favourite little clothing store disappears and the next week it’s become a kind of café. It’s part of the ebb and flow of Maboneng. The energy of Maboneng animates a lot of what we do. The Centre and Maboneng are kind of evolving together.”
Much of the history of the building has been retained, and there’s plenty of light streaming through the skylights and high ceilings. The walls are white washed and floors cemented. The rooms have been given names such as “The 3rd space”; “The event space”; “The Less Good Lounge”, “The Other Space”, all in Kentridge’s
It is the process of following the secondary ideas, those ‘less good ideas’ coined to address the first idea’s cracks, that The Centre nurtures
David Mann
"It is here where initial ideas collapse and fall apart, giving way to secondary ideas."
famous Blue Rubrics. Familiar South African artists such as Mary Sibande and Mikhael Subotzky have their names on doors nearby and David Krut’s publishing studio is also on the premises. Above the threshold to “The Centre Space” a reminder has been placed: “It is here where initial ideas collapse and fall apart, giving way to secondary ideas.”
Mann explains there are three components to frame the work they do: At the Centre, which is the programme in Johannesburg; The Centre Outside the Centre, which focuses on work elsewhere in the world; and SO | The Academy, which is about hands-on learning for professional artists.
Midway through the tour Athena Mazarakis (MA 2010) joins the conversation introducing herself as the “Momenteur” with a grin: “The word doesn’t exist. We’ve always been quite playful with language. We don’t want to replicate how arts organisations function ordinarily. There is no artistic director or CEO, but there’s greater flexibility of roles,” she says. She’s a petite figure, with the posture of a ballet dancer. She has a wealth of experience as choreographer and embodied mindfulness practitioner, but also held a lecturing position at Wits for eight years and worked in rural Mpumalanga at the Forgotten Angle Theatre Collaborative’s Ebhudlweni Arts Centre before joining The
Phala Ookeditse Phala (BA Hons 2010, MA 2013) is a multi-awardwinning theatre-maker and director, winning a Silver Ovation Award at the 2015 National Arts Festival. He values emotional and psychologically stimulating storytelling in his work.
Dimakatso Motholo (BA DA 2017, MA 2020) has the title of “Holder”, working between stage, production management, producing as well as finance. She is interested in an advocacy role, how the South African arts industry could function to serve the artist.
Centre in 2021.
“A momenteur is someone who gives momentum to the learning and educative opportunities at The Centre,” Mazarakis says. “The SO Academy focuses on the artistic community and their continued development – from emerging to established artists. It could be in the studio as workshop or mentorship focused as well as public-facing – such as performance lectures called HOW | Showing the Making that showcase artists and how they work. The focus is on process, helping an artist develop their own way of working or coming to hear about another’s. We also have public conversations called In Conversation, bringing some incredible people through our doors, such as Wole Soyinka recently. We leverage whoever is in our space and what that opportunity can give to our audiences or other artists.”
In the past The Centre’s programme allowed for artists to come together over two “Seasons” every year and for curators to bring together combinations of text, performance, image, music and dance. Each season ran for six months and culminated in a series of public performances. Last October it celebrated its 10th season and Kentridge tongue-in-cheek said: “The Centre is a long-term test of a strategy for making art and making meaning. I think we are 37% through this investigation.” In April, Collations was introduced, inviting a gathering of writers and performers to stage a radio play for a live audience.
What started out on a “modest budget”, initially solely funded by Kentridge, has grown organically and become sustainable: “As we’ve grown, the Centre Outside the Centre provides up to 50% of the funding from international contributions. We have never been around to generate a profit. We don’t have that pressure. It is an extraordinary freedom. To play without worrying about making quotas,” says Mann.
We move out onto a courtyard overlooking olive and lemon trees to escape the percussion and drumming from the dancers. It’s astonishing to witness people, all these kinds of people, coming together in the simplest way: free of ego, generously sharing resources, without a predictable formula (unlike the ubiquitous algorithm).
“It is a place where it is safe for artists to explore and fail at those explorations,” says Mazarakis. “Ironically, there have been few failures.”
“I think failure is something that hasn’t
revealed anything new, for the artist, for an audience or for us,” Mann says quietly.
In 2017, Kentridge told the Mail & Guardian that he was captivated by Johannesburg, a place he described as “obviously and manifestly dysfunctional … And yet, in among this there are still astonishing things that are happening, of civic invention, of finding different spaces, of different groups coming together, of music, theatre, of writing being done. It’s not to say that the dysfunction of the city causes the flowering of other things, but it’s interesting that even in a place which you could describe as disastrous there are things which are fantastic.”
This remains true. ■
(BA FA 2005) is one of the co-founders of The Centre and leads the Centre Outside the Centre, establishing relationships with other experimental art institutions across the globe. She moves between Austria and South Africa.
Explore further: https://lessgoodideacom/
Nthabiseng Malaka (BA DA 2017) is a scenographer and costume designer. She was nominated for a Naledi Theatre Award for Shoes (2018) and Strange (2019). She was recently in Buenos Aires as a set designer La Caja Mágica.
THE GREAT YES, THE GREAT NO
A recent production that emerged from the Centre is THE Great YES, The Great NO. In July 2024, it was performed at Parc des Ateliers in France and it will make its North American premiere in December. The Great YES, The Great NO centres around an historical escape from Vichy France by, among others, the surrealist André Breton, the anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss, the Cuban artist Wilfredo Lam, the communist novelist Victor Serge, and the author Anna Seghers. The journey also becomes fictionalised through including on the passenger list Aimé Césaire, the Nardal sisters (co-founders with Césaire of the anti-colonial Négritude movement in Paris), the West Indian Marxist philosopher Franz Fanon, Josephine Bonaparte, Josephine Baker, Leon Trotsky, Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo, and Joseph Stalin.
"It is
a place where it is safe for artists to explore and fail at those explorations."
We can create a different future
“We are close to the edge of social disaster and destroying our planet, but it doesn’t need to be this way.”
By Heather Dugmore
Witsies
These are the words of biodiversity and global change scientist Dr Phoebe Barnard (MSc 1990), co-founder and former CEO of the Stable Planet Alliance. Based in the US, the alliance is a coalition of organisations and experts around the world, dedicated to large-scale social and environmental change.
Phoebe and her husband, filmmaker John Bowey, are co-producing a four-part documentary series titled The Climate Restorers. In June they launched Episode 2 in Berkeley, California.
“In the global restoration campaigns I’m working with, thousands of scientists worldwide are collaborating with innovators, activists, traditional leaders, faith leaders, women’s groups, government policy makers and citizens to navigate a path back to a better future – where people and the planet actually matter,” says Phoebe.
Left: Dr Phoebe Barnard. The Earth’s natural resources are being depleted faster than they can be replaced.
Image of Dr Barnard: Peter Maher
Top: A young Phoebe in the Drakensberg, 1984 Below: Phoebe was a member of the End Conscription Campaign while on campus.
Images: stock.adobe.com
Right-sizing our human footprint
“It is about right-sizing our human footprint because the Earth’s natural resources are being depleted faster than they can be replaced, she explains. “Securing a positive future for human ity requires urgent action in three crucial but contentious areas: the dramatic reduction of carbon emissions; removing excess carbon from the atmosphere; and reducing overpopulation and hyperconsumption.
“At the same time we have to restore our bio diverse ecosystems, including forests, wetlands, grasslands, peatlands and oceans, all of which are essential for our planet and all species to function, and which remove and store 56% of the world’s annual carbon emissions.”
The Stable Planet Alliance website lists the actions that need to be taken for a better future with regard to energy, pollutants, nature, food, population and the economy.
34 years in southern Africa
Phoebe worked in South Africa and Namibia for 34 years. Originally from Massachusetts in the US, she has a BSc Hons in Biology from Acadia University in Canada, an MSc with distinction in Zoology from Wits and a PhD in animal ecology and evolution from Uppsala University in Sweden.
Among other roles, she was the lead scientist for climate change bioadaptation and biodi versity futures at the South African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI). In the 1990s and early 2000s, she founded and led Namibia’s first national programmes on biodiversity and climate change.
She now lives in Mount Vernon, halfway between Seattle and Vancouver. “We moved back to the US from Cape Town in 2017, and managed to find a beautiful home here that suits our love of hiking, mountaineering and volca no climbing. It’s a small house leading onto a greenbelt and trail up to a supermarket, coffee shop, bank and pharmacy, so we never really need a car to do basic grocery shopping or other errands.”
From an airport transit to Wits
“I arrived in South Africa in 1983 for what was supposed to be an airport transit en route to Zimbabwe to do research through Oxford University on birds of prey and the uptake of pesticides,” she says. “I came here with my
Those little old ladies will teach you a great deal
“I was introduced to the Sash by the late conservation biologist and zoologist, Professor Judith Masters (BSc Hons 1978, PhD 1985), who was a postdoc at Wits at the time. She said: ‘you’ll be surprised by those little old ladies in the Black Sash. They will teach you a great deal.’ And they did. I worked closely with many women, including Sheena Duncan (LLD honoris causa 1990) and Molly Blackburn, both exceptional women with the most incredible stamina.
“It was a remarkable time and I developed a deep love for South Africa despite my anger and frustration about apartheid and the social and political dysfunction,” Phoebe says. “I could see the potential, the power and beauty of the country, and I found I was in the right place to contribute to the growing need for climate and biodiversity action.”
Nature-based solutions
Her work for a range of global conservation bodies has since taken her all over the world.
use from an extractive, exploitative economy and culture to one that invests in climate repair through carbon emission reduction and largescale ecosystem restoration and regeneration. “In addressing the extractive economy we have to address hyperconsumption as well, and the fact that a small percentage of the population is making obscene profits, emitting vast amounts of greenhouse gases through their enterprises, and endangering our climate.
“Another huge issue we can no longer ignore is overpopulation,” Phoebe adds. “It is too often perceived as something we can’t talk about, and certain governments totally avoid it, but in Africa with its escalating population, peo- ple want to talk about it, women want to talk about it.
“We have to invest far more in family well-being through health,
Below: Phoebe at Katla Jökull ice cave, South-Iceland in 2021.
Above: Mount Vernon, US, where Phoebe now lives, is a central location in the Skagit River Valley. The city is located halfway between Vancouver and Seattle.
Right: RoozenGaarde Tulip Farm, Mount Vernon Below: Phoebe and penguins in Antarctica, 2016
Images: Unsplash
education and economic policies; sup port poorer families to advance eco nomically and educationally; protect everyone’s right to life purposes other than parenting; and increase aid for family planning. As part of the Stable Planet Alliance we have a global plat form called GirlPlanetEarth and women tell their stories.”
“We are also working on addressing mis information and prejudice such as current thinking about wild herbivores and livestock on well-managed rangelands.” Through another international network, the Global Evergreening Alliance, Phoebe is involved in work to encour age farming methods that restore biodiversity and store carbon in soils.
Warning after warning
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has set a 2030 deadline to reduce heat-trap ping carbon emissions by half to avoid climate change that is both irreversible and destruc tive. “We’ve had warning after warning, supported by thou sands of scientists and research studies,” Phoebe says.
Her latest article, April this year, is on the Earth at risk and the future of humanity. It
is co-authored with South AfricanSir David (BSc Hons 1961, PhD 1964, – chief scientist for four successive UK govand a host of indigenous and western scholars.
Without action, she says, “we are looking at devastating environmental, civil and economic instability”. The alternative is “a world where biodiversity, people and the planet actually
Dame of Diamonds
Embracing the joy of teaching took Dame Helen Hyde (BA 1968, BA Hons 1969) to the top of her profession in the United Kingdom.
By Heather Dugmore
“Ialways wanted to be a teacher and I’ve always loved studying religions,” says Dame Helen Hyde who in 2013 was made Dame Commander of the British Empire (DBE) for her services to national education and Holocaust education in the United Kingdom.
“How we use knowledge about the Holocaust and all geno cides is critical," Helen says, "because what it should do is inform our humanity to help other human beings no matter what their religion, colour or race.”
Her educational mission started at Wits, where, after get ting her BA and qualifying as a teacher at the Johannesburg
Dame Helen Hyde receiving her DBE from Queen Elizabeth II
Right top: Auschwitz; Helen on an Arctic trip Below: Helen and volunteers giving destitute expectant mothers in Kigali their Mama Packs. Helen at the Callanish Stones on the Isle of Lewis, Scotland, which are believed to be 3000 - 5000 years old.
Teachers’ Training College, she did her Honours in Biblical Studies. “I loved being at Wits, I loved learning and reading and I was always in the library. I loved the campus, and walking up those grand stairs to the Great Hall.”
Her husband, Dr John Hyde (MBBCh 1966), studied medicine at Wits and later specialised in paediatrics in the UK.
Chocolate
mousse and red wine
After Helen’s Honours they headed to Paris for three months in 1970 to improve their French.
“We wanted to learn about art and in Paris we went to every gallery. We had the most wonderful time. We had very little money, so we lived in a tiny hotel room and did the washing in the bidet. We survived on chocolate mousse and red wine that stained your teeth.”
They soon ran out of money and decided to go to London to earn some. John started working as a doctor in London hospitals and Helen started teaching. Three months turned into a lifetime in the UK. “I fell pregnant in London, and we decided we did not want to bring up a child in South Africa under apartheid,” Helen says.
In London she taught French, religious studies and physical education at “some pretty rough schools where there was no discipline, but the staff were wonderful. We eventually turned things around and the kids changed too, and were fantastic.
I treat every one of them as a diamond
“They needed structure but the most important requirement for teaching schoolkids is you must love them, all of them, including the naughty ones, otherwise you mustn’t teach. I treated every one of them as a diamond and they knew it. When I became a school principal, during every graduation I would take out a big theatrical diamond, and they never forgot this.”
At Watford Grammar School for Girls, a large state school near London where Helen was subsequently principal for 29 years, they put up a sign: “The Diamond Factory”.
The Hyde family eventually settled in Radlett, 12km from Watford, where they have lived for over 30 years.
While at Watford, Helen did a Master’s in Theology through London University. She then researched the roots of antisemitism and developed a programme on Holocaust education at
Watford. “The aim was to teach students how misinformation, prejudice, hatred and violence, when left unchecked and ignored, can lead to mass murder and genocide.”
Presented to the queen
For her outstanding service to state education and holocaust education, in 2013 she headed to Buckingham Palace to receive her DBE from Queen Elizabeth II. “I was presented to the Queen, who held my hand without gloves and chatted with me. I will never forget it. I love the royal family, including Charles, who is a wonderful, unpretentious man, devoted to the environment.”
Helen remained at Watford School until 2017, and a year later she received an honorary doctorate from the University of Hertfordshire for her contribution to education. “I’m continuing with education, I coach and mentor head teachers and senior educational advisors and assist schools when required,” she says.
“I tried to set up a charity in South Africa so that I could send books to schools there, but I kept getting tax charges and so did the recipients, and it just wasn’t tenable. I then focused on Rwanda, where I was already working with genocide survivors, notably Tutsi women and their children.”
The Rwandan Sisterhood
She and a woman named Souvenir Mutesi created a group called the Rwandan Sisterhood. They set up a school in an informal settlement and taught the mothers, most of whom were illiterate, skills to make and sell school uniforms.
The Rwandan Sisterhood now has representatives from 10 countries who raise funds for essential items for the women, including ‘mama packs’ which are given to destitute mothers when they are eight months pregnant. The group also supports a clinic, nursery school and feeding project in Kigali. Helen leads volunteer visits to Rwanda where they help with all these initiatives.
In the UK she is a patron and trustee of One Vision, a charity working with all religions to support vulnerable people there, many of them immigrants.
Excess energy
Asked how she manages all these activities as well as taking art classes, giving art talks
“How we use knowledge about the Holocaust and all genocides is critical because what it should do is inform our humanity to help other human beings no matter what their religion, colour or race.”
and leading Holocaust education tours to Poland, Germany and Holland, Helen laughs and says: “I have excess energy.”
Between her commitments, Helen spends as much time with family as possible. “Our eldest, Liza, lives in Portugal with her son. She calls herself by an Indian name, Unmani, and is a spiritual teacher. Our younger daughter Nicole is a GP and married to a kidney specialist. They live nearby and have three daughters.
“We have a very good life in Radlett and we even have a wonderful South African butcher who has fabulous biltong. We get lots of South African favourites here, from Peppermint Crisps to Ouma rusks. The only thing we can’t get is marshmallow fish, which I love.
Travels together
“John and I continue to enjoy lots of travels together. We’ve been to the far reaches of the UK but also to the Antarctic, Arctic, China and Japan. We love flowers and earlier this year we took a boat trip to see the tulips in Amsterdam, Belgium and Germany. Next year we are taking a boat trip in the Mediterranean.”When it’s back to her frantic schedule, John is a great support. “He is calm, and I am impatient,” Helen says. “My philosophy is to help as many people as I can, as life is short, and when I am on my deathbed I want to look at my life as if it is like a totally melted-down candle where nothing has been wasted.” ■
Uncontrollable Wanderlust
Hugh Fraser (BArch 1987) has a confirmed case of dromomania – an uncontrollable urge to travel.
By Heather Dugmore
“Ithink my travel obsession comes from growing up in apartheid South Africa when half of the world was forbidden to us,” says Hugh Fraser. “As with most things, if something is forbidden you immediately gravitate towards it.”
He has visited 107 countries and territories and has kept all his visa records and air ticket chits. But it’s Joburg that’s home, in a house he designed and built in Craighall Park.
It was in January 1982 that his dromomania first took hold, he remi nisces: “I bolted to Europe immediately after completing my compulsory service in the navy, and just before I started at Wits. I flew to London with that dreadful airline Luxavia, then went to Paris, Lyon, Turin, Rome, Innsbruck, Zurich and Heidelberg. It was such an escape from the op pressive narrowness of South Africa at the time and it was incredibly affordable. I took R1000 with me and returned home with R300.”
It was obviously in the pre-digital age. “Back then, books, movies and imagination drove my obsession for travel, which intensified once I started studying architecture.”
Fraser had Professor Pancho Guedes (BArch 1953, DArch honoris causa 2003) as a lecturer and describes him as “the most prodigious architect in the history of Mozambique”. “He was brilliant, a polymath and maverick who had travelled around Europe taking photographs of buildings, which he would show us. I absolutely loved him and he had a profound influence on me.”
Wits at the time was defined by the politics of the mid1980s, the demonstrations, police raids and arrests. “As architectural students we were part of this to a degree but there wasn’t much time for it. We were frequently up working on drawings until three in the morning, listening to Radio 5. I had lovely friends in my class, including lots of strong, outspoken women with whom I am still friends, and who have gone on to achieve a lot in architecture, including Fiona Garson (BArch 1988), Sara Calburn (BArch 1987), Kate Otten (BArch 1987) and Hannah le Roux (BArch 1987, MArch 2002). I also had to make money for my studies and I worked part-time as the night manager of a brothel in Smit Street called ‘The Pads’. ”
In 1985, in his fourth year, Fraser went to do his internship in Rottweil, Germany. “I went to a German school and I could speak German.” He did the rest of the internship in London and made use of the time to travel.
Fraser returned to South Africa for the fifth and six years of his degree, and, while studying, worked for Tyser Pellegrini architects. “I went to Zimbabwe for the first time in 1986 and saw the Victoria Falls and Kariba. It was my first solo African trip. As a child I’d been to Lesotho and Mozambique with my parents.”
Later he took trips to countries as far flung as Finland, Israel, Iran, the Soviet Union, Panama, Pakistan, Afghanistan and the US.
“In Pakistan I had the most impressive flight of my life in mid-winter between the Himalaya and Karakoram mountains near the city of Skardu, which is the departure point for K2. From here I took a bus to Gilgit on the Karakoram Highway, and five months later I went back to continue the trip, this time on a cargo jeep over the Khunjerab Pass into China. My driver smoked marijuana continuously, which was no cause for comfort as I looked down the vertical sides of valleys that I had no intention of exploring at short notice. My aim was to continue to Tajikistan but the borders were closed. It’s still on my list.”
His favourite city in the world outside Joburg is New York: “I loved New York so much that I stayed there for weeks and if I’d had more spine at the time I would have stayed there for good. But I had an over-developed sense of responsibility and came back to my job.”
A year after Nelson Mandela was released in 1990, Fraser bought a house in Troyeville and started lecturing in architecture at what is now the University of
Johannesburg. “During every student holiday I managed to go trav elling. Everywhere I went I would take photographs of architecture that I would then show to my students. It was a privilege to share with them what I was seeing and learning.”
From 1990 to 2022 Fraser lectured part-time at the Wits School of Architecture and worked as an architect for several years. In the early 2000s he bought a piece of land in Craighall Park where he created his home.
“I could have bought three very nice houses with the money I’ve spent on travel, and thank god I didn’t have children as I wouldn’t have been able to travel,” says Fraser.
In 2004 he started a job at the Concrete Institute promoting the use of concrete in architecture. “It was like putting a drug addict in charge of a pharmacy as I now had company money to travel the world, photographing and making movies about concrete architecture. Japan’s concrete architecture blew me away.
“In Tokyo I would visit about eight buildings a day, photographing concrete buildings, including the work of architects like Tadao Ando, Toyo Ito and Kenzō Tange. I spent two weeks with the filmmaker Lloyd Ross, traversing Japan using paper maps and local transport. Some of the buildings I loved included Ando’s Church of Light outside Osaka, the high-end retail buildings of Omotesando Hills in central Tokyo and the traditional houses and courtyards of Kyoto.”
He subsequently got a job with PG Glass promoting the use of glass in architecture and from 2012 to 2020 he was with Paragon Architects in Johannesburg, all the while continuing to lecture part-time at Wits.
In January 2020 he went to North Korea and Vladivostok, took the Trans-Siberian express and then flew to New York just before Covid hit in March. “I landed to see the shutters being pulled down at the Apple store and it was very clear we were facing a disaster. New York was a ghost town and I got on the last commercial flight back to Joburg. Covid was a nightmare and I decided if I couldn’t travel, I would study tour guiding.
“I have since qualified as a national tour guide, but I mostly show people around Joburg, which is by far the most interesting city in the country, defined by gold, money and power. I love it here and I know the whole
city very well, including its backstreets and buildings, which are the longest-lasting manifestation of its history, and the stories behind the buildings. I’ve shown the city to some of the world’s most famous contemporary architects and they loved it.”
Fraser knows the underbelly and all the secret enclaves in the city that most people have never seen. “I frequently visit the diasporic parts of the city. I love cooking and I have done Korean, Chinese, Turkish and Ethiopian cooking courses here,” says this recent winner of ‘Come Dine With Me’.
His most recent trip was to Rwanda and back with journalist Bridget Hilton-Barber. “We drove the whole way in my Subaru Forester, covering 10 000km in 40 days,” says Fraser, who
Above left: Hugh Fraser in Pakistan, 1995 Above right: Images from Hugh Fraser’s many travels around the globe.
filmed the journey on an iPhone 14, iPhone 12 and a drone. “Making a film this way is part of my commitment to the democratisation of media, to show that you can shoot broadcast quality movies on a phone.”
Explore more
“The entire trip was fantastic and we got to see extraordinary sights like Lake Tanganyika. Apart from a flat battery, blowing five tyres and having my drone confiscated in Rwanda and then returned, we had no trouble and never once felt threatened. I’m now planning a road trip to Angola.” Fraser says for now he has to travel by road “because my travel addiction has taken me to the borderline of financial disaster, but I cannot stop ... And when I look back on over 40 years of adventure, it has been beyond worth it.” ■
Books
CHRIS VAN WYKIRASCIBLE GENIUS A SON ’ S MEMOIR
BY Kevin van Wyk
Pan Macmillan South Africa, 2024
When author Chris van Wyk (DLitt honoris causa 2019) died in 2014, he left behind an impressive literary legacy. The scope of his work includes poetry, children’s books, short stories and biographies. His poem In Detention, a satire on the grossly unrealistic reasons given by the security police for the deaths of political prisoners, is still taught in many schools. But he is perhaps best remembered for the memoir Shirley, Goodness & Mercy (Picador, 2004), which tells a compelling story of a boy growing up in Johannesburg’s Riverlea, Coronationville and Newclare communities during apartheid.
Kevin van Wyk (LLB 2003), one of his surviving sons, has offered readers an affectionate portrait of Chris, the family man, in Irascible Genius. Other members of the Van Wyk household include younger brother Karl (BA 2008, BA Hons 2009, MA 2012, PhD 2017), a lecturer in the Wits English department, and ever-steady mother Kathy.
Kevin, a freelance legal consultant, says the memoir emerged when he tried to make sense of the sudden loss of both parents to cancer. “It all started after my father's passing. I kept having this desire to tell more
stories that he had left behind.”
Originally, he sat down writing bullet points sketching his parents’ influence. “I was having conversations with myself…I realised how much fun my father had as a writer. I discovered things I didn’t know were there.”
Kevin recounts their family’s modest origins, living in a caravan for three years in the backyard of his grandparents’ home. The steady breadwinner was Kathy, who worked for a bank, while Chris worked as an editor and writer for SACHED, an educational NGO and Staffrider, a radical literary magazine. At one point he was an editor for Ravan Press.
Kevin writes in a tone that echoes his father’s voice, as if he’s having a conversation with the reader, sharing gossip or juicy secrets – “skinner”. He has inherited Chris’s sense of humour and ability to laugh at himself, even in very embarrassing circumstances.
Reviewers have commented that this memoir is another response to Njabulo Ndebele’s call for writers to “rediscover the ordinary”. Kevin alludes to having done so in a speech he delivered – which is included at
“My father believed that people mattered. Our stories and those of our parents and grandparents who came before us are as important and valuable as any other tale. We needn’t be rich or famous to tell our stories.”
the end of the memoir – when his father was awarded an honorary doctorate from Wits in 2019:
“My father believed that people mattered. Our stories and those of our parents and grandparents who came before us are as important and valuable as any other tale. We needn’t be rich or famous to tell our stories. One of the tragedies of South Africa is that apartheid taught many of us that our stories are not important, but this could not be further from the truth. What my father had realised was that people, no matter who they were or where they came from, were proud of their stories and wanted them to be told. These people were not mere onlookers or footnotes in the history of this country but were intricately part of its story.”
What is apparent, throughout the memoir, is how Chris’s love for his family allowed his sons to flourish and know who they are in the world, an essential human need, but all too rarely realised. ■
Left: Kevin embraced by his father as they wait for the train in Düsseldorf, Germany.
Image: Tim Besserer
“You cannot separate the economy from the planet, or from people.”
Prof Mervyn King
THE CORPORATE REVOLUTIONARY:
MERVYN KING’S LIFE IN LAW, BUSINESS AND GOVERNANCE
BY David Williams Tafelberg, 2024
When Professor Mervyn King (BA 1958, LLB 1960, BCom 1969, HDipTax 1975, LLD honoris causa 2008) reached the end of his first undergraduate degree at Wits, he was asked to consider an academic career in music. He obliged, finishing a thesis on “the development of organ music on the Witwatersrand”, but chose not to hand it in and instead committed himself fully to other goals. At the age of 23, he obtained seven distinctions in his Bachelor of Laws degree, for which he studied part-time while doing his articles.
David Williams (BA 1977, HDipEd 1979) recounts Prof King’s legacy in The Corporate Revolutionary, illustrating that he is the ultimate polymath who reached the pinnacle in three different areas: as a commercial lawyer; as an advocate and a judge; and as a businessman, as chair and director of many organisations. As a result of his wide-ranging skills, he has transformed the global business landscape.
In 1994, Prof King’s seminal idea challenged the primacy of the “shareholder model”, in which businesses assumed that their only purpose was to make a profit. The King
Reports have emphasised that good governance is about corporate citizenship. It stresses that businesses can no longer increase profit at any cost, but should add value to society and ensure no further degradation of the planet. “You cannot separate the economy from the planet, or from people,” he says.
Prof King advocates for director behaviour that encompasses “softer issues” or intangibles such as the environment, employee health and safety. The King Reports have a global footprint and are used for teaching students at international business schools. The principles he outlines are established best practice guidelines for many global companies.
Williams is a seasoned financial journalist, who has been the deputy editor of the Financial Mail, and author of several books on military history and sport. He is now a senior anchor on the daily “Open Exchange” programme on CNBC Africa. In this authorised biography he captures Prof King not only as a visionary thinker, but also as a committed global citizen, and a campaigner for justice and sustainability. ■
David Williams
QUIET TIME WITH THE PRESIDENT: A DOCTOR’S STORY ABOUT LEARNING TO LISTEN
BY Peter Friedland with Jill Margo Jonathan Ball, 2024
From 2000 to 2009 Professor Peter Friedland (MBBCh 1988, MMed 1998) was the ear, nose and throat (ENT) specialist to Nelson Mandela (LLD honoris causa 1991) and the lessons he learned from the former statesman are captured in this memoir, co-written with his sister Jill Margo (BA 1978), an award-wining journalist with the Australian Financial Review, who received the Order of Australia for her pioneering con tribution to cancer awareness in 2006. When Prof Friedland recently turned 60, he felt motivated to relook at his old medical notes and journals in which he documented thoughts after chats with Mandela. Their conversations regularly veered towards politics and challenged him to examine his reasons for supporting specific causes and holding particular views. Prof Friedland describes this time as one of the most significant experiences in his life: “I thought I was healing him so he could hear better, but he taught me
to listen and that was healing for me.”
WINNING WITSIE TITLE
Based in Perth since 2009, Prof Friedland is a consultant ENT at Joondalup Health Campus and Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital, in Western Australia, where he was head of ENT for six years. He’s also the Garnett Passe Rodney Williams Foundation Professor of Otolaryngology at the University of Western Australia as well as professor at the School of Medicine at Notre Dame, where he teaches and coordinates the curriculum for final year medical students. He and his twin brother Richard (MBBCh 1993) both started their university studies in veterinary medicine and then moved into medicine at Wits. Richard retired last month, after almost 20 years, as the CEO of Netcare. The South African proceeds from this book will go to hearing charity Hi Hopes, an early intervention partner for families of deaf and hard-of-hearing babies. ■
Jarred Thompson (MA 2022), a literary and cultural studies researcher in the English department at the University of Pretoria, has been awarded the 2024 Debut Prize for South African Writing in English for his novel The Institute for Creative Dying (Picador 2023) by the University of Johannesburg. The award, known as the UJ Prize, was established in 2006 and is given annually. Previous winners include Wits alumni Mandla Langa (MA 2020, DLitt honoris causa 2019) and Jacob Dlamini (BA 2002, BA Hons 2003). The Institute for Creative Dying is a direct result of his master’s in creative writing at Wits and has been praised for being “thought-provoking” and “an astonishing, unique piece of work.”
Thompson’s novel has also been shortlisted for the 2024 Sunday Times Literary Awards in the fiction category. The judges said: “A beautifully written narrative with arresting descriptions, the prose invites you to marvel at the exquisite portrayal of magnificent death scenes. The story is perceptive, highly imaginative and captivating.”
Image of Prof Friedland: Julie Kerbel
READING THE ROCKS: ADVENTURES OF TWIN SOUTH AFRICAN GEOLOGISTS
BY Richard and Morris Viljoen Novus Print, 2024
This memoir embraces the lives of two distinguished geologists Morris and Richard Viljoen (BSc 1961, BSc Hons 1962, MSc 1964, PhD 1970), who’ve maintained close ties with their alma mater since their last graduation in 1970.
Their journey with Wits began in 1958 as geology students who had similar interests in biology and geography, with “a penchant for maps and map making”. The memoir pays tribute to their “outstanding group of lecturers” at Wits. From the very first lecture they were enthralled, particularly by Professor Traugott Gevers, who showed a film of his field trip to the Nyamulagira Volcano in the Virunga Mountains in the Congo in the late 1930s: “An enraged bull elephant charged Gevers’ vehicle in one of the game parks, and he was able to film the entire episode up to the point where the elephant made contact with the vehicle, in the process causing a severe fracture to the professor’s leg.” He never recovered from the incident and walked with a limp for the rest of his life. Apparently, he invited senior students to his house, presenting entertaining slide shows, accompanied by good wine and classical music. Prof
Gevers had a significant influence as mentor on both brothers throughout their careers until his death in 1991 at the age of 91.
Other influential lectures included Professor Boris Balinsky for his lasting impression on the relatively new subjects of DNA and RNA. In geography there was Prof Stanley Jackson, while Dr Dennis Flair, Thelma Mullens and Prof Gordon Lauf taught surveying.
Their undergraduate years were punctuated by field trips with mining engineering students to various districts around Southern Africa. An important third-year geology mapping project was at Swartkops, north of Krugersdorp. “The cluster of hills represents a large outcrop of lower Witwatersrand strata, which we were tasked with mapping in detail,” the brothers recall. “For the first time in our careers we experienced the achievement of producing our own geological map of which we were very proud. This assignment was fundamentally important to all our careers.”
In 1965 the twin brothers were offered a Council for Scientific and Industrial Research bursary to undertake a project entitled “Ultrabasics
in fold belts in the Barberton area”, under the direction and supervision of Professor Desmond Pretorius of the Economic Geology Research Institute at Wits. The research involved a detailed geological, geochemical and economic study of areas in the Barberton region. These investigations led to Morris being the co-discoverer, with his brother, of a new class of igneous and volcanic rocks which were named “komatiite” after the Komati River. These studies led to the brothers being awarded doctorate degrees and several prestigious awards.
The foreword is written by colleague Emeritus Professor Carl Anhaeusser, who is also director of the Economic Geology Research Institute in the School of Geosciences at Wits. He says the memoir shows the Viljoen brothers’ unique ability to combine scientific study with corporate involvement. “They set the benchmark in fully embracing aspects of their devotion to all things geological. Two more enthusiastic geologists I have never encountered and their accounts of the activities they embark upon, either separately or together, are a revelation.”
Towards the end of their careers
Left: Morris and Richard Viljoen in 1969, Above: Morris, Richard and Carl Anhaeusser, at Vredefort Dome in 1961
IN THE RUNNING
Professor Jonny Steinberg (BA 1992, BA 1993, MA 1996) has been shortlisted in the non-fiction category for Winnie and Nelson: Portrait of a Marriage (Jonathan Ball, 2023) in the 2024 Sunday Times Literary Awards. Judges said: “Telling the tale of a statesman as storied as Nelson Mandela is difficult, combining it with the story of another icon in his wife Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, is remarkably ambitious and fraught with peril. Steinberg does it with skill, courage and sensitivity.” This dual memoir has been shortlisted for the 2024 Wolfson Prize as well.
both Viljoen brothers had rewarding positions as professors of geology at Wits. They acknowledge the role the University played in shaping their careers: “We owe much to our alma mater and we value the stimulation and feeling of belonging that we continue to experience through alumni events and the outstanding Wits Review magazine. We remain proud Witsies.”
Morris passed away of COVIDrelated complications on 19 August 2021 and was not able to see the final version of the memoir. ■
“Joburg, to me, is like a jilted lover. It is a complicated city that will love and hate you in equal measure.”
THE CITY IS MINE
BY Niq Mhlongo
Twenty years ago, Niq Mhlongo 1997) published his first novel Eat Dog (Kwela 2004). The lead char acter, Dingz, was an average Wits student who struggled with money and fabricated excuses for missing exams. The novel offered a unique perspective of life at the time of South Africa’s first democratic elec tions and has been published inter nationally, translated into Spanish, Italian and Burmese, and won the Spanish La Mar de Letras Prize. It’s taught at tertiary institutions and has been made into radio plays by the BBC and Radio Sweden, and in Norway and Germany.
Mhlongo’s latest new novel, City is Mine, is another slice-of-life perspective set in Johannesburg, this time 30 years after democracy and is an “anti-love letter” to the city. The main character, Mangi, loses his job and his fiancée Aza. He spirals from his comfortable suburban life to an inner-city one filled with danger, homelessness and devastation. The title comes from a homeless man, Seatbelt, living under the Smith Street Bridge, who claims “this city is mine.”
Mhlongo said in a recent interview that “Joburg, to me, is like a jilted lover, like the characters of Aza and Mangi. It is a complicated city
that will love and hate you in equal measure, at the same time, with the same intensity. Joburg is that kind of a city that will prise your heart open… All the characters in the book are mirrors of this city that is made up of numerous identities interacting, sometimes harmoniously, sometimes in conflict.” ■
Image:
South African Literary Awards
Kwela, 2024
AMITAV GHOSH
The past is visionary
Wits University, WiSER, the Presidential Climate Commission, and the University of Pretoria hosted the award-winning author, Amitav Ghosh, for a series of events during September 2024. Ghosh is an internationally celebrated author of 20 historical fiction and non-fiction books who has written about the legacies of colonialism, violence and exploitation of the earth’s resources. “History has always been very important and interesting to me. That’s the big difference between me and others who write about the planetary crisis. Most others think of it in terms of the future, but I see the planetary crisis as being rooted in the past. The current crisis is not really a radical break from the past — it’s very much a continuation of it,” he says.
In Memoriam
We fondly remember those who have gone before us
The innovative and reclusive archi tect Michael Sutton died on 22 May 2024 at the age of 96. His buildings, which displayed a sensitivity to the conditions around them as well as a modest use of materials, were a timeless signature style during the 1960s and 1970s in Greece and South Africa.
Sutton was born deaf as the youngest son of Royal Air Force pilot William and Dolly Sutton. His older sister, Ann, was deaf too and the family moved to England before the start of World War II to receive the benefit of specialist schools there. Neither sibling learned to sign but understood what was being said if words were enunciated clearly.
He recalled: “Our father re-joined the RAF and our mother drove an ambulance during the London Blitz. We all came together on school holidays and in spite of food rationing and bombers overhead, we had a wonderful time wherever my father was stationed with his squadron –Kent, Surrey, Newcastle, Scotland, Devonshire.”
Back in South Africa after the war, after a struggle to matriculate (because of the required Afrikaans), he was accepted at Wits. His father
died after their return and an uncle, Sir George Albu, ensured his university bills were paid. Sutton considered his time at the University as “a great experience” because of the help and kindness of fellow students and lecturers, particularly Professor John Fassler, who was one of the main protagonists to spread Modernism in the country.
Prior to his university studies Sutton worked for Steffen Ahrends, who insisted on “honest materials, basic simplicity, and good proportions based on human scale.” These principles remained an enduring influence on Sutton's work.
In 1956 he shared a flat with Tom Russell, then a film and music critic at The Star, who remained his best friend, companion and architectural critic. It was Russell who convinced him to start his own practice in 1961. His first partner was John Griffiths, followed by David Walker who assisted in running the office, leaving him time for design work and time to travel overseas often, including six months in India and Nepal in 1971 and many months in Greece. He was influenced by the Mediterranean and finally settled in Greece around 1974. He owned a traditional Greek Kaiki called Sophia in which he sailed with friends to many of the Aegean islands, absorbing the essence of the architecture and culture.
In 2020 Sutton donated the archive of his South African practice, facilitated by Hannah Le Roux (BArch 1987, MArch 2002), to Wits, which is in the process of being digitised. He also created two bursaries for deaf students to study architecture.
In 2023 the South African Institute for Architects awarded him an
Image:
Michael Sutton
House Smithers
honorary membership. His work had an indelible impact on Wits-trained architects such as Clive Chipkin (BArch 1955, DArch honoris causa 2013) Mira Fassler Kamstra (BArch 1961), Nina Cohen (BArch 1991) and granddaughter of Professor Fassler, Victoria de la Cour (BAS 2001, BArch PG 2003).
His architectural philosophy is perhaps best stated by Sri Lankan architect, Geoffrey Bawa: “I have always enjoyed seeing buildings but seldom enjoyed explanations about them – as I feel, with others, that architecture cannot be totally explained but must be experienced.”
Sources: Artefacts; The Heritage Portal
Rose Norwich
BArch 1943, MArch 1988 1921-2024
One of the few alumnae to qualify in the field of architecture at Wits during the 1940s, Rose Norwich died on 26 August 2024 at the age of 103.
She was born in Johannesburg in 1921 to Abraham and Lily Sive. Her father was a Lithuanian immigrant who worked in a pharmacy, while her mother’s family originally came from England in the late 19th century. She was one of five children and grew up in a home in Houghton. In her biography, In Celebration of a Century, she recalled that the house had a garden with a willow tree, from which her father made whistles, as well as a tennis court, and an orchard with plums, figs, and walnuts.
Norwich matriculated from Johannesburg Girls’ High School, known as Barnato Park, and started her studies at Wits in 1939. She met and married Isadore “Oscar”
Norwich (MBBCh 1933) in 1945. He was a Johannesburg surgeon, who was an avid collector of Africana maps.
Norwich was always involved in community life, serving as vice president and later president of the Union of Jewish Women of the South Africa in the 1970s, at an important time in the country’s history. She was outspoken in her opposition to apartheid, saying at the Union’s 1979 conference that “history has shown us that it is not possible for one section of the population forever to dominate another”.
In 1988 she was awarded her master’s degree with distinction from Wits titled “Synagogues on the Witwatersrand and in Pretoria before 1932: their origin, form and
House Mosendane, Rockville, Soweto
function”. This was based on her work as the joint convenor of a documentary project to record the history of Jewish communities in country areas of South Africa, co-heading a team with Adrienne Kollenberg and Phyllis Jowell. It was exhibited at the Tel Aviv University in 1980 and has since grown into the publication of six volumes by The South African Friends of Beth Hatefutsoth. The collection provides a unique record of the estimated 10 000 to 20 000 Jewish people who lived in the country districts of South Africa at various times from as far back as the 1820 Settlers, to almost the present day. In this, she compiled a history of 43 shul buildings, tracing, copying, and drawing the plans of each.
Norwich is survived by her four children Michael (MA 1969, MBA 1973), Brahm, Elda, and Lorraine; eight grandchildren and four great grandchildren.
She described herself as “lucky in life”, grateful for good parents, an excellent education, happy marriage and family life. “You can’t do it all yourself,” she was fond of saying.
Sources: Wits Review, South African Jewish Report
1929-2024
Cedric Bremner
(MBBCh 1953, MMed 1968)
A global authority on Barrett’s oesophagus and oesophageal can cer, Emeritus professor Cedric Bremner, died on 9 July 2024 at the age of 95.
He was the fifth of seven children of James and Ida Bremner and grew up in Rosebank, Johannesburg, matriculating from Parktown Boys High School. After graduating from Wits Medical School, he spent two years in teaching units and proceed ed to the United Kingdom to pursue postgraduate surgical training at Hammersmith Hospital in London and St Andrews University in Edinburgh.
more than 300 peer reviewed manuscripts, commentaries, and book chapters and books. He served on the editorial boards of nine journals, including a tenure of six years for the SA Medical Journal. He was the honorary editor and chairman of the SA Journal of Surgery from 1974-1992.
He met his wife of 63 years while training and Cynthia (Sally) and he returned to South Africa after his training to begin a family and a career. He worked under the leadership of professors Daniel Du Plessis (MBBCh 1941, LLD honoris causa 1984) and Johannes Myburgh (MMed 1966, DSc honoris causa 1996) and was awarded the degree of Master of Surgery in 1968 for his thesis on the pyloric muscle. In 1968, he received the Michael and Janie Miller Fellowship, which enabled him to spend a year at the Mayo Clinic in the laboratory of Dr CF Code under the direction of Dr Henry Ellis, a giant in the world of oesophageal surgery. During his tenure there he worked on a novel model of gastro-oesophageal reflux in which he proved that Barrett’s oesophagus, the condition characterised by changes in the cells lining the oesophagus, was indeed an acquired and not a congenital disease. His interest in the oesophagus continued throughout his life.
One of his daughter's summarised the essence of him: “He was one of those folks who always made you want to be a better person.”
Professor Bremner was a pioneer surgeon in Johannesburg, performing many “firsts”, serving South Africans at the “non-white” hospitals in Johannesburg at the time: Baragwanath, Coronation, and Hillbrow hospitals. He was appointed chief of surgery at Coronation Hospital (now Rahima Moosa) from 1979-1987, and chief of surgery at Hillbrow Hospital from 1987-1992. He started the first esophageal motility laboratory in Johannesburg, enlisting the nursing assistance of his wife Sally to help run the laboratory, and later his animal research laboratory. Professor Bremner was a prolific writer and researcher, publishing
Upon his retirement from Hillbrow Hospital at age 65, Professor Bremner relocated to Los Angeles, where he ran the USC Esophageal Research Unit and a Trauma and Surgical service at the Los Angeles County Hospital for the next 13 years. He was deeply patriotic, and his recognition of the contribution of South Africa to world medicine is reflected in a book he co-authored with Rochelle Keene and published for Wits University’s centennial: A Century of Achievement: South African contributions to global medicine (Print Matters, 2022). This latter work was the result of a decade of work he pursued after his final retirement.
After returning to South Africa from Southern California, he moved to the retirement community of Amber Valley in Howick, where he became known as “the guy who gives all those talks” as he continued to teach whatever he learned: topics such as “Tea”, “Lichens”, and “Joy in the little things”. At the age of 90 he won a public speaking competition in Pietermaritzburg.
Professor Bremner was known for his humility, his exemplary teaching, and his kindness to all. One of his daughters summarised the essence of him: “He was one of those folks who always made you want to be a better person”.
He is survived by his wife Sally, his four children, Ross (BSc 1985, MBBCh 1988, PhD1998), Nicola (BA 1987), Bruce (BSc Building 1989, PGDipPDM 1993), Heidi (BPEd 1993), and his 10 grandchildren.
Source: The Bremner family
1930-2024
David Mayne
BSc Eng 1951, MSc Eng 1956
Professor David Mayne, who made numerous seminal contributions to systems and control science, died on 27 May 2024 at the age of 94. He was based at the department of electrical and electronic engineering, Imperial College London since 1959 and was the former head of its Control and Power Research group.
Professor Mayne was born in 1930 in Germiston and graduated from Wits with an electrical engineering degree in1951. He regarded Professor GR Bozzoli as a mentor. In 1954, at the age of 24 and recently married, he left South Africa to spend two years working as an electrical engineer at British Thomson Houston Company in Rugby, England. At the end of 1956 he returned to his academic post at Wits to develop a new course on automatic control.
In 1959 with his wife Josephine and their three young daughters, he left for London to take up an academic position as lecturer at Imperial College London. He was promoted to reader in 1967, and then to professor in 1971, eventually serving as head of the department from 1984 to 1988, before retiring in 1989, and being appointed as Emeritus Professor in 1996.
Professor Mayne made numerous contributions, but most notable was the development of a rigorous mathematical basis for analysing Model Predictive Control algorithms. Model Predictive Control is used in tens of thousands of applications and is a core part of the advanced control technology in chemical processing, control of driverless cars and many other areas.
over 350 papers and co-authored seminal books on differential dynamic programming, such as A Model Predictive Control: Theory, Computation, and Design, which has been cited 5,600 times. He wrote a notable paper published in Automatica that has received 9,900 citations.
His accolades include an honorary Doctor of Technology degree from the University of Lund, an honorary professorship from Beihang University, the Sir Harold Hartley Medal from the Institute of Measurement and Control and the Heaviside Premium (received twice) from the Institution of Electrical Engineers. He was also awarded the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Control Systems Award in 2009 and the International Federation of Automatic Control High Impact Paper Award in 2011.
In 2014 he was awarded the Giorgio Quazza Medal, which recognises outstanding lifetime contributions of an engineer to conceptual foundations in the field of systems and control. He was a Fellow of the Royal Society, the Royal Academy of Engineering, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers and the International Federation of Automatic Control.
Over the years, Professor Mayne remained fond of Wits, regularly attending alumni events in the UK and generously donating to his alma mater. Colleagues said of him: “His academic achievements were secondary only to his modesty and gentle personality.”
He is survived by his wife Josephine; his daughters Sue, Máire, and Ruth; and four grandchildren.
Source: Imperial College London
1935-2024
Peter Randall
MEd 1981, PhD 1989
Anti-apartheid publisher and former professor of education at Wits, Dr Peter Randall died on 5 June 2024. He was born in Durban in 1935 and completed his teacher’s training in 1956, also obtaining a BA through UNISA. Throughout his working years, Dr Randall was a prolific editor and writer.
He met his wife, Isobel (née Hickman), at teachers’ training college, and they were married in 1958. They had four children, one of whom died as an infant. The surviving three Randall children are all Wits alumni: Lee-Ann (BSc 1986, PhD 2019); Susan (MA 2006); David (BA 1994, PDM 1996).
From 1957 to 1961, Dr Randall worked for the Natal Education Department. He and Isobel then moved to the UK, where they worked for Essex County Council for two years before returning to South Africa in 1964. Dr Randall became involved in anti-apartheid politics, and from 1965 to 1969 he was the assistant director at the South African Institute of Race Relations in Johannesburg. From 1969 to 1972 he was the director of the Study Project on Christianity in Apartheid Society (Spro-Cas), and in 1972 he co-founded Ravan Press with Beyers Naudé and Danie van Zyl. Ravan punched above its weight, publishing dissident voices and often attracting censorship.
In October 1977, Dr Randall and Naude, among others, were served with banning orders. He had been employed part-time by Wits as a teacher organiser, but his banning order prevented him from continuing in either the Wits or Ravan
roles. Wits applied to the minister of justice for permission to employ him full-time and continued to pay his salary. Permission was granted six months later, and in 1978 Dr Randall took up a full-time post at the university, with both administrative and academic responsibilities. He continued working at Wits until his retirement in 1995, eventually becoming professor assignatus and director of teacher training.
In 2006, the South African History Archives obtained from the State Archives copies of all documentation on Dr Randall that had been kept by the Bureau of State Security during his years of activism. A set of the files was given to him, and another was archived at Wits.
Despite his keen intellect, Dr Randall was warm and down-toearth. He enjoyed being active – even winning a marathon in his late teens – and embodied lifelong learning. He had a meticulous approach to mowing the lawn, ironing the sheets, sweeping the driveway, and polishing the silver. He enjoyed leisurely walks, although in later years he was unable to keep up with Isobel’s small but rapid stride.
Randall celebrated his 66th wedding anniversary in Johannesburg in January 2024. He had become increasingly frail, and on 29 February
Below: In 1972 Peter co-founded Ravan Press with Beyers Naudé and Danie van Zyl Image: Ravan Press
he was hospitalised after a fall. Isobel seldom left his bedside during his last lengthy inpatient admission.
Randall followed the events leading up to the May 2024 general elections in South Africa with interest. On 2 June, he asked for a summary and was shown the IEC map of the results that were finalised that day, and he remarked on the “tribal loyalties” in his province of birth, KwaZulu-Natal. He passed away three days later, still in hospital, surrounded by family.
He is remembered as a loving husband, caring father and grandfather, and visionary thinker.
Source: Randall family
Michael Dale
Professor Michael Dale, the preeminent law authority on prospecting, mining, exploration and production of minerals and petroleum, died on 23 May 2024 at the age of 72.
The soft-spoken head of Norton Rose Fulbright South Africa’s mineral and petroleum law department, provided “unparalleled expertise and guidance to major local and international mining houses as well as mining industry representative bodies.”
He was an Honorary Professor at the Mandela Institute at Wits. He introduced “The Law of Prospecting and Mining” LLB course in 1983.
Rodney Man
Former chairman of the Chinese Association of South Africa, Rodney Man, died on 13 June 2024 at the age of 80. He was a prominent spokesperson for the South African Chinese community, a strategic business thinker as well as a highly respected lecturer.
As one of the early generations of Chinese university graduates in the country, he grew into his leadership role when he and like-minded community members joined forces to resuscitate the Transvaal Chinese Association and form the national representative organisation, the Chinese Association of South Africa
He also lectured extensively in the LLB and LLM programmes, as well as in the Post-Graduate Certificate Course and short courses on Mining Law at the Mandela Institute.
Professor Dale was a prolific academic and a co-ordinating author of the seminal book South African Mineral and Petroleum Law published by LexisNexis. He co-authored books on mining legislation and notarial practice, contributing articles to national and international journals, and presenting papers at global conferences on mining law. He was also a long-standing contributor to the Annual Survey of South African Law, writing the Mining Law chapter published by Juta.
He was admitted as an attorney, notary public and conveyancer
during the turbulent 1980s.
He played a significant role in forging business links with China from the 1990s. He was lauded for negotiating with local politicians, while simultaneously juggling the delicate transition of South Africa’s official diplomatic relations from the Republic of China, or Taiwan, (pre 1994) to the People’s Republic of China (post 1994). He convinced
in South Africa and Lesotho, and held the right of appearance in the High Court of South Africa. He was recognised in the Legal500 Hall of Fame, which underscores his enduring impact and legacy in the legal profession.
At the time of his passing, a colleague, Pieter Niehaus, wrote on LinkedIn:
“It was always remarkable that he never had to speak louder in any discussion, be it with clients, counsel, or even opponents in a matter, as everyone knew they had to listen, because what he said was important. He was kind, engaging, and generous with his time in passing on his immense knowledge and experience.”
Sources: Norton Fulbright Rose, LinkedIn
many industrialists from Taiwan to invest in South Africa.
Beyond his community leadership, Man had a distinguished professional career, with an MBA from the University of Cape Town. He retired as a business development director for Linde China, contributing to the numerous successful joint ventures and large-scale industrial projects in Asia. He served as a guest lecturer at Wits Business School and as an educator at the London School of Economics, in addition to being an adjunct associate professor at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, where he shared his invaluable knowledge with students from diverse backgrounds.
He is survived by his wife Lynette, two children Gregory and Caroline, as well as their extended families.
Source: Chinese Association in Gauteng
1962-2024
Martin Wittenberg
MCom 1997 cum laude
The world-class economist and activist who made substantive contributions in the analysis of inequality and labour markets in South Africa, Professor Martin Wittenberg, died on 27 July 2024, after a protracted battle with cancer. He was former director of Data First the unit specialising in the dissemi nation and preservation of data from African socioeconomic surveys, as well as professor in the School of Economics at the University of Cape Town since January 2004. Prior to that he taught at Wits for a decade. Professor Wittenberg was born in Bethel, Germany, the oldest of four children. His father, Gunter, was a Lutheran scholar and his mother, Monica, a midwife. The family returned to South Africa when Wittenberg was a year old. He excelled in maths and science, becoming the top matriculant in Natal, with a medal in the Maths Olympiad and the Natal Chess Championship.
According to this family, his engagement with reading and discussions on German history during his school years sparked his deep-seated opposition to injustice and oppression. He started his academic career in 1981 at the University of Natal (now the University of KwaZuluNatal) in Pietermaritzburg and led the NUSAS branch as well as serving as deputy president of the Student Representative Council. His fellow activists Faizel Ismail and Kam Chetty recalled: “He shunned the limelight, preferring to work diligently behind the scenes, where he won over many young people in the student movement with his firm and clear articulation of his political
“He will be remembered for his dedication to rigorous scholarship and integrity as a researcher, and the quality and depth of his mentorship of graduate students.”
views.” Soon after the launch of the United Democratic Front in August 1983, Professor Wittenberg became one of the joint secretaries in the KZN Midlands region. He was detained and his movement restricted.
Following the unbanning, he continued as a productive researcher and embarked on his academic teaching career at Wits.
In addition to his master’s in economics, he forged his own path, with majors in philosophy, mathematics and statistics at undergraduate level, a master’s in political science and a doctorate in geography from
different institutions. He was consistently passionate about understanding and addressing the root causes of poverty and inequality in South Africa.
From 2010 to 2023, under his leadership, Data First won the National Science and Technology Forum’s Data for Research Award. He made major contributions to advancing data analysis skills in South Africa, most notably through a 10-year partnership with Statistics South Africa.
UCT’s statement read: “He will be remembered for his dedication to rigorous scholarship and integrity as a researcher, the quality and depth of his mentorship of graduate students, his frankness and honesty as a colleague, and his commitment to building public goods that enable others to do better and more reliable research of their own.”
Professor Wittenberg was married to the respected science journalist Christina Scott, who was killed in a car accident in 2011. He is survived by his children Nozipho, Ali and Ben; as well as sisters Inge, Gertrude and Reinhild.
Sources: UCT, IOL, TimesLIVE
Sifiso Dabengwa
Former MTN CEO and Eskom chair Sifiso Dabengwa 1 September 2024 at the age of 63 from cancer. The Zimbabwean-born executive had an electrical engineer ing degree from the University of Zimbabwe and an MBA from Wits Business School.
As a youngster, he confessed to having no career aspirations, other than “to be an engineer”. When he completed his engineering degree, he did a few years as a trainee on British Rail. After that, he went to work on Zimbabwe Railways, before joining a consulting engineering firm based in Pretoria, where he worked on projects in Botswana, Swaziland and the former Bophuthatswana.
He told WBS Journal that doing his MBA full-time changed his life: “In the sense that it was unique, because it created new opportunities for changing my career.” He said
Nick Binedell, then director of WBS influenced him most.
He joined Eskom on completing his MBA and left the parastatal as executive director of distribution to join MTN in 1999 as managing director of South African operations. Dabengwa was instrumental in guiding MTN through significant phases of growth and transformation across Africa between 2011 and 2015 as CEO.
He was appointed to the Eskom board in January 2018, just before the country’s delegation went to the
1968-2024
Bernard Khoza
BProc 1994, LLB 1998
One of the cherished members of the Wits Black Law Alumni, Bernard Khoza, died after a short illness earlier this year. He was a chronic diabetic, which may have attributed to his sudden passing.
Khoza was born in Elim, Limpopo, the third son of William Khoza and Topisa, neé Baloyi, beginning his
primary and secondary school education in the local villages. He had a gift for academic pursuits and his ed ucation was “wholly financed through his mother’s hustle selling umqombothi”.
He pursued law at Wits, with the weight of family and community expectation thrust on his shoulders as soon as he graduated. He spent the entirety of his law career working in the legal department of the Reserve Bank. He was a key activist
World Economic Forum in Davos to assure investors that it was cleaning up state owned entities. He resigned from the position in 2020.
MTN president and CEO Ralph Mupita said Dabengwa’s impact was significant. “Sifiso was respected not only for his professional achievements but also for [the] integrity, humility and the respect he showed to all who worked with him. He was a mentor to many and a leader who exemplified the values of commitment and service.”
He was fiercely private and found talking about himself uncomfortable and being photographed disconcerting. He referred to himself as “one” rather than “me” and spoke very softly.
He is survived by his wife, Naspers SA CEO Phuthi MahanyeleDabengwa and four children.
Sources: BusinessLIVE, WBSJournal
in the propagation for, and the advocacy of, the equality of the Venda and Tsonga languages. He travelled, on his own account, to parliament in Cape Town to make submissions for this purpose.
He is survived by his mother, wife, and three daughters Hlawulekani (BCom 2024), Ntsako and Claire.
Source: Wits Black Law Alumni
1957-2024
Steven Goldblatt
BA 1980, LLB 1984
Known affectionately as the “pesterer-in-chief” and one of the early founding members of The Weekly Mail, Steven Goldblatt died in May
lenging tasks during the publication’s early days in the late 1980s, which included raising money, securing advertising, finding the cheapest office in Braamfontein as well as recruiting staff. He used innovative techniques such as “nagging, bartering, making unfulfillable promises and using every one of his vast set of connections” (which included the Black Sash and the Market Theatre mailing lists among others).
The vast scope of Goldblatt’s influence emerged during his memorial service: he had been an underground ANC operative, scouting for targets for uMkhonto weSizwe, his then “controller”, Patrick Fitzgerald (BA 1976) said. His behind-thescenes work with then minister of agriculture and land affairs, Derek Hanekom, saw the negotiating and setting up the R370 million KWV trust for wine industry workers. He was key in drafting precedent-setting
Above: Steven Goldblatt featured obliquely in two of his father’s photographs. In 1960 as “Steven with sightseeing bus”; and 2006 as a lawyer representing the Mohlohlo farming community against Anglo American’s plans for a platinum mine in Mokopane.
class action court victories, including the asbestos litigation that led to a R450 million settlement as well as the silicosis litigation, which led to a R5 billion trust being set up for mineworker victims.
“To recall Steven is to remind myself of the enormous potential for good that lies within us and how far short most of us fall,” Advocate Richard Spoor said of him. Friend and colleague Judge David Unterhalter (LLB 1984) described
him as “courageous and bold … he had moral courage about the things that matter in the world. And personal courage in the adversities he was to face.”
He was born on 31 December 1957, son of Lily and David Goldblatt (BCom 1957, DLitt honoris causa 2008) and is survived by his siblings Brenda (BA 1983) and Rasada.
Sources: Mail & Guardian; SA History Online, Wits archives
1962-2024
Yakub Essack
MBBCh 1987
Leader of the Gift of the Givers medical team, Dr Yakub Essack, died on 1 May 2024 after suffering a heart attack. Dr Essack was originally from Standerton in Mpumalanga and pursued his tertiary education at Wits during the turbulent 1980s. He was a family medicine specialist who enjoyed teaching fifth-year medical students in this setting. He co-founded the Newtown Clinical Research Centre in 2004 working there until 2014, and left to join the Gift of the Givers, the largest disaster response non-governmental organisation in Africa. He embraced the taxing role of team leader on several international missions, driven by a dedication to serving humanity.
Gift of the Givers volunteer and neurologist Dr Aayesha Soni (MBBCh 2014) paid tribute to him saying: “a magnanimous man whose willingness to lend a helping hand to those who needed it was consistent in his personal and professional life. He managed to infuse this passion with a gentle and caring nature, making him both responsible and approachable to all those around him. This is a rare trait in a leader. His skill set in being able to assemble a group of medical volunteers and equipment efficiently and at short notice was unmatched.”
Sources: Daily Maverick and LinkedIn
Celebrated civil engineer Professor Philip Savage died on 5 August 2024, less than a month before his 103rd birthday.
Born in 1921, with a twin brother, John (BSc Eng 1944), he qualified from Wits with a civil engineering degree as World War II drew to a close. Professor Savage began his professional career at the then Transvaal Road Department and he was encouraged to apply for post graduate studies via a bursary.
Rhodesia; the Union Corporation project at Ngodwana in the Elands River Valley between Waterval Boven and Montrose during the late 1950s, as well as the N4 (PretoriaBronkhorstspruit) and the S12 (Benoni-Argent) contracts.
In 1970 he was offered and accepted a professorship in geomechanics and road construction at the University of Pretoria in the department of civil engineering. Students enjoyed the anecdotes he related when lecturing theory. He also learned to teach the intricacies of soil mechanics in Afrikaans, despite his home language being English. After retiring in 1986 he presented lectures and courses in compaction and soil stabilisation for the South African Road Federation and other organisations and acted as a specialist consultant in this field.
He continued to work with various consultants and road contractors earning experience in road building technology, with an emphasis on earthworks construction and geomechanics. Notable projects to which he contributed include: the road
Professor Savage’s, wife Ann, was diagnosed with cancer and to spend as much time as possible together, she accompanied him on many field and construction inspection trips. She died in the late 1960s, leaving him and two daughters.
In 2021 Professor Savage received the South African Road Federation’s President’s Award for his major contribution to the industry and created a bursary that will be awarded to an engineer who would like to further their studies in road building materials.
Sources: South African Road Federation; Prof Alex Visser (MSc Eng 1974), Paul Nordengen (MSc Eng 1989)
Savage
BSc Eng 1944, MSc Eng 1948
MyMasters
By Peter Sullivan (MA 2024)
Former group editor of the Independent Newspapers looks back at his studies in philosophy in applied ethics.
Wits Review reports mostly about alumni who were spectacularly successful; well done, hurrah, hooray! Strugglers like me are woefully underrepresented in this fine magazine. We strugglers may even be the majority. “Wha’ about the strugglers!” is our shout.
So here’s a story to hearten all of you.
quickly replied to my emailed script. “I don’t think you would want to submit it in the way you have.”
The question demanded we use a particular format for logic arguments. Mine was not in the desired format. He’d hate to give me zero. Perhaps I’d like to resubmit the assignment, before he was forced to mark it?
Strike one against my arrogance.
During COVID I decided to return to Wits to do a Master’s in Philosophy in Applied Ethics. You may recall the early months of the pandemic. Confined to home. Boredom.
My first bout at Wits was from 1969 to 1971, most of that devoted to slap chips in the canteen while playing poker for real money, all-night bridge games at res, a bit of hockey and beers at the Devonshire Hotel, where I took a job as night manager to help pay for my pleasures – and studies.
With trepidation, excitement and curiosity, I enrolled in 2021 in the philosophy department for this new degree, with the patient help and guidance of professors Dylan Futter and Ashley Coates (PhD 2017). My youth could be recreated, methought.
My first assignment was a doddle, lots of logic questions. Loved logic under the tutelage of Irving J Copi’s book in 1969. Confident I knew it all.
A quickly completed script was dashed off to my new philosophy professor, the inimitable Brian Penrose, and I rubbed my hands in glee, certain of a good grade. This was easier than I’d expected.
The remarkable Brian, infinitely kind and patient,
He gently explained that I should take time to read and contemplate before submitting.
This being COVID times, we only met on Zoom. When our new class first met our professors and lecturers on the screen, I was astonished at their age. Professor Coates, who had graciously accepted me into the programme, looked like he was fresh outta high school.
Brian, thank heavens, was more my age.
Brian was simply wonderful. So caring, so careful to be encouraging when pointing out mistakes, cautious in criticism, suggesting alternative views, yet pedantic about every comma and full stop.
His death during my studies was a body blow to all.
I managed to disappoint him when exams came around.
I was a bit anxious before writing the paper (at home on a computer) as I hadn’t written exams for 50 years. His three-hour paper was easy-peasy. So confident was I
that I went to tell my partner I had cracked it with half an hour to spare! Hooray.
When I sauntered back to reopen my computer, it displayed a message from Brian: “Is there a reason you did not complete question 3A?”
Panic. Had missed a 30-mark question. What a clot. Strike two against arrogance.
When I apologised for disappointing him, he said he was concerned that 80% of the class had misread various parts of the paper.
I passed, not well but not badly. I was sure the second year of this adventure would go well.
I loved the course work, enjoyed the reading, felt challenged by the assignments. In 2022 was happy to finally get on campus and have real lectures from real people with real classmates, not digital ones on Zoom.
Loved learning about ethics in medicine, ethics in the environment, in business and in privacy rights. Had to research and contemplate whether culling elephants in Kruger was ethical, evaluate affirmative action, decide whether vaccinations should be mandatory and much else.
Learnt much, stretched my mind. Good marks for some essays.
But at the end of the final semester of year two, I screwed up an exam again.
I’d like to say it wasn’t my fault, but that’s very whiny. As I was almost ready to push the button to submit, my Apple MacBook Pro froze – for the first time ever.
With 15 minutes to go before time was up, I could not send the exam script, or amend it, save it, take a picture of it. Nothing. Nada. Frozen.
Real panic. Some rainbow beach-ball thing going round and round on my screen. I screamed for help from my smart partner. She told me to calm down. Not very helpful, frankly.
With serious panic rising, I thought to phone the good professor, with about five minutes left on the clock. He told me not to panic. Hmm. Took a picture of the screen with my cellphone, and just as the time was about to expire my smart partner managed to get it running. I could send a half-completed script in on time.
Could not believe I had stuffed up two exams.
Now for the big Research Project which even I could not get wrong. Wrong!
The delightful Professor Lucy Allais was appointed my supervisor. What a pathetic student she inherited. Supposed to submit a proposal, I misread it. Thought I had to submit the full 20,000-word project. Laboured long and hard. Handed that in late, which, when rejected as it was not a proposal but a thesis, made me very late submitting the actual proposal. This made me even later for the project itself.
Professor Allais was patient and extraordinarily help ful as she guided me through eight, nine, ten revisions of my 25,000-word project. With each revision I learned a huge amount; it was exciting, great new ideas, thoughts, some discipline crowding into my brain.
It still amazes me that the teaching staff could be so caring; quite extraordinary for lecturers.
Then there is the bureaucracy. Navigating it requires a good guide. There are none better than Phillimon Mnisi, patient with my impatience, carefully ensuring all the interminable documentation was correctly completed and submitted, so that even a clot like me could get over the line eventually.
I would love to end by saying I passed cum laude, but I cracked 71% from the external examiner and 69% from the internal one. Not bad, not great.
Here’s the kicker: a few days late for the deadline with all relevant documentation, I missed a deadline for the graduation ceremony in December.
My Master of Arts degree was conferred on 14 November 2023, with my thesis “Principles to Guide Media Practitioners in Ethical Decision-making in Real Time”, but that fancied little walk across the stage had to wait for 11 July 2024.
To all of you who are not superstars, keep up the struggle. Without our struggling con tributions, our uni versity would not be the welcoming place it is. ■
