It is not a secret anymore: the University of the Free State has announced the shortlist of candidates for the vice-chancellorship of the University. The post was vacated end of last month by Prof. Jonathan Jansen who will be taking up a fellowship at his alma mater, Stanford University in California. The three formidable candidates are all currently deputy vice-chancellors at historically white universities: Prof. Themba Mosia (University of Pretoria), Prof. Francis Petersen (University of Cape Town) and Prof. Lis Lange (University of the Free State).
While all three candidates have a lot going for them, my preference is Prof. Lis Lange for a great number of personal reasons. Not the least because I have had the pleasure of seeing her in action during her time at the head of the Council on Higher Education (CHE) and the Higher Education Quality Committee (HEQC) in South Africa. I was the first researcher/research manager of the CHE - from 2002 - 2008 first full-time and then in part-time capacity while researching my own PhD. I don't think there are many current higher education leaders in SA who have such a thorough understanding of the system and individual institutions, and been part of developing and transforming SA higher education for the better in almost two decades.
I have also worked with her on research projects into various aspects of higher education, including most recently an in-depth longitudinal analysis of governance, leadership and management in the sector. Our study has highlighted the pervasive problems of management failures and corruption in many institutions, and I trust her to be the corruption-buster that any university needs today.
Prof. Lange is not only highly qualified as leader and manager in the sector - and since 2010 at the UFS itself - but also as a scholar. She has made numerous high-level presentations and given keynotes, as well as written numerous scholarly articles and commentaries. She is the Editor-in-Chief of Acta Academica, which under her editorial leadership has regained a reputation of quality and avoided being de-accredited by the Department of Higher Education and Training.
In my very own book published in 2016, which has received a great deal of local and international attention, i.e. Student Politics in Africa: Representation and Activism, co-edited with M Klemencic (Harvard) and JO Jowi (Moi), Prof Lange has written the Epilogue (see blog entry from 2015). Prof. Lange wrote her insightful epilogue because she understands student issues and has been a driving force behind current projects at the UFS to improve the student experience: this includes the project for improving the admission and registration processes, the complete overhaul of the quality assurance regime, the development of institutional research capacity, and last but not least, the project of improving student participation in all aspects of university governance. The student representation in academic governance project is the first project of this kind, and it looks in great depth into the innovative ways in which students in some of the UFS departments, schools and faculties are already included in improving teaching and learning, so that what works can be recommended to units that have not yet developed such systems.
It is therefore extremely disconcerting that in the Bloemfontein Kaasblad (masquerading as an actual quality newspaper in Afrikaans), Prof Lange is being thrown with mud, yet again. It appear that for the few highly conservative forces that push a anti-UFS agenda at Die Kaasblad she is some kind of threat. Or is it some kind of sexism or xenophobia? None of that has any place in academia: here one has to be accountable to actual objective criteria of quality and merit... and that is precisely what transformation tries to achieve: equity - meaning fairness; so that at some point we can all partake together in a prosperous and successful, united and diverse nation. How I ask can one explain the lies that were written about her in the Kaasblad article published on the front-page of 14 September?
As for me, I guess I always believe to much in the goodness of people, and that finally the truth will prevail. I certainly hope that in the selection process for a new rector and vice-chancellor, the candidate who is best suited to lead the UFS will win. I have stated my personal preference; in my professional life, I will serve any of these excellent candidates to the best of my ability and that of my great team and my many and diverse colleagues at the UFS and beyond. May the best woman win! :)
PS: The picture of the three candidates (above) is my snip of the front-page of Die Volksblad.
