Prof. Jonathan Jansen

Goeiemore, dames en here. Good morning, Ladies and Gentlemen. Dumelang. Sanibonani.

What a privilege to be here this morning. I want to welcome every member of our staff to 2010 at the University of the Free State. Ladies and gentlemen, this is the year in which your life is going to change; in which the University is going to change; and the year in which we are going to take the first steps towards taking a leap, like Prof. Driekie said, “From good to great.” We do not want to be good – that’s my message to you this morning. We do not want to be good. Good is the enemy of great and our University wants to be great. Prepare for the ride of your life.

What are your dreams for 2010? When you stood there with your family and the champagneand so on, on the 31st to the 1st of January, what did you dream? What are your dreams for 2010? Some of you might be dreaming this: Bafana Bafana wins the FIFA World Cup! The Cheetahs win the Super 14 title! Bloemfontein Celtic lifts the Premiership title! This one I like: The Shimlas beat the Pukke! And the University of the Free State makes the move to becoming South Africa’s leading university. Man, that is the nice part of it.

I want to introduce you to a great man. He’s moved from “good to great.” You are in for a treat. Corné, I would like you to tell us what happened there in Eastern Europe.

Mr Corné van Pletzen:

Professor Jansen, Ladies and Gentlemen.  A wonderful, extremely exceptional thing happened to the University Choir. During the holidays we toured to Europe and in Prague we sang at an Advent festival. There was a section for choirs that did not participate competitively, whilst the others participated competitively. Per chance we were the only choir that did not participate in the competition, but sang in the festival. We also sang before the adjudicators and they asked me whether we would like to be critiqued. Then I told them that I would like that very much. At the end of the entire event, the organiser asked me if I would please let the University Choir close the event. At that point I had still not really realised where that was heading. On the evening when all the conductors had to appear on stage, all received their awards – a gold, silver or bronze medal for their performances. Choirs from France, an outstanding choir from the eastern part of Singapore, and numerous choirs from Russia, the Ukraine and Spain. After all the awards had been handed out, and I was standing on stage, knowing that we were probably going to receive an award for our participation, a trumpet sounded and I thought, “What was happening here now?” The next moment they announced that the best choir of that entire event was – and I am still hearing it, “... and the choir laureate of 2009 is the Free State University Choir.” It was an incredible surprise for us. When they [the organisers] went to the adjudicators to receive the results, gold or silver or whatever, they asked the adjudicators – two were from the Czech Republic – “Who would you regard as the best choir at this entire event?” Then they answered, “The Free State University Choir”. Then they said that they had not participated in the competition. The adjudicators replied that it did not matter; they could not award it to another choir. Wonderful! After that we went onto stage and it was moving; then we sang our National Anthem with tears and joy and everything.

Prof. Jonathan Jansen:

What makes a great organisation? What does a distinguished university look like? I would like to share a few things with you: imagine a university at which no student stands in a registration line for longer than 10 minutes; imagine a university at which every academic publishes quality research every year; imagine a university at which no student misses a class because of the high quality of teaching in that class; imagine a university where all senior students highly respect the first-year students in all 23 residences; imagine a university at which every staff member earns a living wage; think of a university where every staff member and each student socialise with one another, not on the grounds of race or class or gender, but on the basis of our common humanity.

Now, you work very hard for this university, especially the staff, and I want to thank you for that. What you don’t hear all the time, but what I get a lot, are the things that you do well. I'm going to share with you a few things that I heard this past week and a half. I went around the past few days talking to first-year students. The first one I talked to was somebody I know very well from Pretoria. And I said, “So, what do you think about the University of the Free State?” This is what she said, “The University of the Free State was made for me,” it was made for me.

I travelled to the back of one of the science buildings and I grabbed a student and I said, “what do you say?”
“I'm a first year from the Eastern Cape.”
“And what do you think of our University?”
 This is what she said, “I love the diversity on this campus.”

Somebody wrote this piece, it’s called UKZN falling behind. It was written this week to a newspaper called The Natal Witness. This journalist spends half of her column telling the UKZN how bad they are. And then she said, “My younger child would like to be at the University of the Free State for 2010. By October we had all the information regarding fees, courses, everything and so on. This was an amazing experience on orientation day. The entire day ran like clockwork, the tone was that of enthusiasm, success and passion. The student helpers were motivated and focused on their studies and the vibe was positive and infectious. Financially UFS is much cheaper than you guys – residence fee included. And there is a University”, she says, “that put students and their parents first”. We didn’t pay her, she just wrote this.

Another letter from a parent this past week:
Bloemfontein was never part of our family vocabulary. We never thought of the UFS as an option for tertiary education. Our perception changed last week when we phoned your information desk. Within 30 minutes they sent us all the necessary information. We were still sceptical about the University and I decided I was coming down personally to submit the application forms. So we took a trip down from Pretoria to Bloemfontein. We observed the environment critically – because we heard things. But we are truly humbled by the commitment and professionalism of your staff. If I may quote a few names: Rochelle and Naledi at the information desk; Mr Gordon, Erica du Preez, the accommodation staff. My daughter is now proud to be associated with the UFS. We acknowledge things won’t always be perfect, but the environment will be safe and conducive for learning. Yours sincerely, Mary Ngubeni.

And then I thought I'll share with you a last one:
We as parents would like to express our thanks and appreciation to the team at the University of the Free State. Our daughter, Marika, has not only been accepted, but also made to feel most welcome. We come from Botswana and sometimes things are unsure on the other side of the border. Your administrative division was most competent, thanks to Mr Gordon, Mrs Tashidi and the admin team. The accommodation people and staff of Roosmaryn Residence made both us and our daughter feel most at home. We are just so pleased that your University is organised in such a fantastic manner and that people work as a complete team.

Now, Ladies and Gentlemen, you might not feel like that every day. In the sweat of your labour you might feel that things could be done better, but I would like to tell you that there are also people that watch us, watch what you do, and that say that you are doing well. You bring distinction to the University. I really would like to say to you this morning: thank you very much for what you mean to this University.

Let me share some other good news with you. The majority of our residences are now fully integrated on a 50/50 basis in the first-year class. Now, I'm hoping that by next year we no longer count students and that they just learn to be together on the basis of being human. I really hope that we are going to get there, but I want to give you the good news. You know that when I arrived at Welwitschia last year, my first visit to a residence of the 23, I only saw black women. It was good to see them, but my heart gave a lurch. I said, “How is it possible, 15 years into a democracy, still to have such dividedness amongst us?” And yesterday morning in my session – and I was joined by the Dean of Student Affairs, Rudi Buys, a student came in. And she said, “Professor, I don’t need to speak to you, there are people outside who need you more”. I said, “No, no, what do you need to say?” She said, “I'm from Wel-Wel and I need to tell you how we did it”. I just want to tell you, Ladies and Gentlemen, we have to believe in our youth; we must believe in their potential; we must believe that these children can show us the way ahead; we must believe that they can be comfortable with one another. I just want to tell you, I'm so proud of our students and I want to thank the SRC for showing the way, I want to thank Rudi, Quintin, Esta, the entire team. Thank you for making this possible. As I said in the letter to the minister’s office the other day, I can tell you that this is now the most integrated campus in South Africa. I am truly proud of what my colleagues have doen.

You might not know this, but do you know that we have now attracted – and I’ve watched some of them the other night at the athletics meeting – we’ve now attracted some of the best athletes in the country to our University in the first-year class, including some of the best hockey players. Absolutely amazing! When I looked at all the applications of people who want to come to the University of the Free State, we are busy attracting some of the best scholars in this country, and from other parts of the world, who want to be with us. I would like to tell you, Ladies and Gentlemen, this place, like the young people says, is going to “rock.” And so I thought I would use this opportunity very briefly to just share with you some of the priorities that we have for 2010:

We are about to appoint the Senior Vice-Rector, so let me just tell you a few things.

No. 1 – A university is only good if it has good professors. Now, we’ve got some good ones but we don’t have a lot. Therefore the first priority for 2010 – this is our currency – is to recruit the best professors in the country and, in addition to the ones we have, I'll be going around the world and around the country to get the best people to teach my students.

No. 2 – We’re going to market the UFS, the Kovsies, as never before; no place in this country, no school in this country, will by the end of this year not have heard about Kovsies. So, starting very early on Wednesday morning, I'm going to make sure that we bring the best black and white students to the best university in the country. You have not seen marketing yet. We’ve got a great team now and we are going to start doing great things.

No. 3 – We’re starting a capital campaign to raise R100 million for the University of the Free State. Some of that money, obviously, has to be to enable more students who can’t afford it, to study here. You must leave an endowment, you must leave something for the future, something on which a University can build and I'm not going to leave here until we are able to give you an endowment that you can be proud of.

No. 4 – We have already started to upgrade the infrastructure in our residences. We’re going to make sure that our residences are places that all students want to come to in order to study. So, I'm giving you that commitment. As I told the first-year students the other day, our website is about to undergo a major transformation. You’re about to see the best website. We are also busy building more classrooms that are much larger, for all our students to be able to be accommodated.

No. 5 – We are starting immediately, Ladies and Gentlemen, to raise the quality of tuition, of university tuition, at Kovsies. From this year onwards I am going to request the Senate to make class attendance compulsory for all students. Here we are going to attend class en I am telling you now that the moment we achieve that, we shall immediately see our throughput rates increase and that the quality of teaching at our University also rises sharply.

No. 6 – I’m going to ask the Senate that we require from every member of the academic staff to publish every year.

No. 7 – A priority for this year, Ladies and Gentlemen, in spite of all these good things that we have heard, is to train all our administrative and support services personnel, train them properly, so that we can create a world-class culture of service here on our campus where every student, every parent and every staff member are taken seriously.

No. 8 – We’re going to insist that the conditions of service of our staff, especially those who work for outside agencies, be improved. Now, we are not going to renew the tenders with our outside agencies unless they lift the minimum wage significantly for all our staff. And we are going to ask the Council that we extend also to those staff the study benefits that allow the children of our poor colleagues to also study at our University.

I'm proud of the SRC, I'm extremely proud of the leadership of Moses and I'm just really grateful. I am very grateful for the leadership of the SRC. We are very privileged. In fact, this thing that they wear on their collars, trust me, they only pretend; they’re not Freedom Front and SASCO; they’re actually just students who love to lead and I’m very proud of them, I have to tell you. I'm very proud of my admin and support staff. Thank you, everybody, thank you for everything you do for our University, thank you for all who work overtime and don’t get a cent for that, but you enjoy it. Thank you to all of you. A thank you also goes to all my Deans, thank you for the leadership that you offer us. Thank you for your leadership of sometimes very large and complex faculties. I want to say thank you very, very much. Thank you to the new guys, Dennis and Rudi, I just want to tell you we have just made the best appointments. You are amazing and I just know with all our deans we are going to be a hit. Thank you to the workers who are here today. Thank you also to my colleagues with whom I had a wonderful lunch the other day, who are sitting right in front here and who were in the news a lot last year. I just want to tell you that I love you very much and that I am very proud of you and thank you for the good discussions that we had. I want to thank everyone here. Thank you to my senior colleagues, Prof. Driekie Hay, Prof. Viljoen, Prof. Verschoor and Prof. Moraka. Thank you very much for the amazing team that all of you are. Thank you to our council members who are here. I want to thank Judge Ian van der Merwe, Mr Steenkamp and everybody here present, thank you for your leadership. Thank you, all of you. Thank you for the Father Towe for being here and for reminding me to be Catholic in my spirit as I try to lead and co-lead the University. All of you, everyone who sits here, thank you very much. The best jazz ensemble in the country, thank you very much. Ladies and Gentlemen, let’s go and enjoy a piece of meat together.

Prof. Driekie Hay:

Professor Jansen, Well, what can one say? If you have not been inspired this morning and you don’t have a feeling of hope and expectation and enthusiasm to approach this year, then I don’t know what in this life will get you moving. Professor Jansen, you are inspired, you stretch us, you make us think much further than what I have probably thought in the past few years, but it is a privilege to work under your leadership and I can assure you every day is exciting. Sometimes it feels as if that Main Building is vibrating so much with excitement and positivity and I hope that each of you will take a piece of this positivity back to the faculty and where you work.