Prof (ML) Lis Lange
Vice-Rector: Academic

Prof Lis Lange is Vice-Rector: Academic at the University of the Free State, where she previously held a substantive position as Senior Director heading the Directorate for Institutional Research and Academic Planning (DIRAP).

Before this, she was the Executive Director (2006-2010) of the Higher Education Quality Committee of the Council of Higher Education (CHE), and Acting CEO of the same organisation between August 2007 and April 2008. She has been involved in the development and implementation of science and technology and higher-education policy in South Africa for a decade and a half, working in different capacities in the Human Sciences Research Council, the National Research Foundation, and the Council on Higher Education.

Prof Lange has served as a member of the board of the International Network of Quality Assurance Agencies in Higher Education (INQAAHE) and has participated in several international initiatives on quality assurance. She is the editor of an academic journal focused on the humanities, Acta Academica. She has undertaken research and published in the fields of history, higher education, and quality assurance. She is a well-known specialist in South African higher education and has made an important contribution to the study of systemic and institutional transformation, academic freedom, and curriculum. Her major concern in both research and practice is the role of higher education in the development of democratic societies based on social justice.

Prof Lange studied in Argentina, Mexico, and South Africa, where she obtained a PhD in South African history from the University of the Witwatersrand.