Vice-Chancellor, Professor Albert van Jaarsveld
Other Vice-Chancellors present
Parents
Students
Professor van Jaarsveld, it gives me great pleasure to speak on the occasion of your inauguration as Vice-Chancellor of the University of the KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN).
I think you might well be the first zoologist to become the vice chancellor of a South African university. There have been many scientists and not a few doctors, but I think, and I may be wrong, that you are the first zoologist. I expect you to blaze a trail for zoologists so that other zoologists will want to follow in your footsteps.
I think you may also be the first CEO of the National Research Foundation (NRF) to become a Vice Chancellor. I don't expect you to blaze a trail for future NRF CEOs. But I do expect you to use your unique insight into our research landscape for the advantage of UKZN.
You were instrumental in steering South Africa and Africa to success in winning the SKA bid. Your people skills were challenged, tested and appreciated. Those skills will be sorely needed in this university.
But it's not only your understanding of our national facilities but also your insight into the training a new generation of scientists in South Africa that will benefit UKZN.
You will be the first to acknowledge that if we are to improve the global competitiveness of our research base, productivity and performance come first. Yet productivity and performance require democratic transformation. Our most productive researchers are reaching retirement age and we look forward to a new generation of researchers to take their place. As we know from the debate over student admissions at UCT, there are only 303 black professors (14% of the 2,174 full professors) in South African universities. And according to the 2010/11 R&D survey, African researchers –as a percentage of total researchers in the country –account for 26,7%, with Indian and coloured researchers accounting for only 9,6% and 5,2%, respectively.
While these numbers are not what you or I expect them to be, I know from your time at the NRF you are committed to changing them through a number of initiatives - split-time PhD programmes, where the student will spend a third of his or her doctoral programme outside the country, foreign postdoctoral fellowships to be held in South Africa - under the Newton Fund, for example - and also by promoting full-time doctoral training abroad on the guarantee of a post on return at this university.
The first challenge you face is to provide managerial and intellectual leadership. You will be able to draw on your immense experience at the executive level from your days at other universities. I would ask you to give special attention to first-generation students, those who don't have parents to look after them, those who rather have to look after their parents. Make them feel at home. Make them feel they belong. Get them to show you how good they can be. They are your future success. UKZN is sixth on the research log of SA universities. They can push UKZN into the top five.
The second challenge you will face is to provide a clear vision of what UKZN stands for as a university. How can you make UKZN graduates proud of their education, proud of their degrees, and proud to say to prospective employers: I am a UKZN graduate.
Last, I have to tell you that the university record in retaining leaders is not a good one. One study shows that since 1994 there has been a turnover of 84 Vice Chancellors in South Africa, with an average term of 3.7 years. So get cracking.
Once again, congratulations on your appointment and I wish you well.
