Prof Saleem Badat

 

Prof Saleem Badat

Resume

Saleem Badat is Research Professor in the Department of History in the Faculty of Humanities at the University of the Free State.

He holds qualifications from the University of KwaZulu-Natal and Boston University and a PhD in Sociology from the University of York.

Most recently, he was Research Professor in the Humanities Institute in the College of Humanities, University of KwaZulu-Natal.

Between 2014 and 2018 he was the first Program Director of International Higher Education & Strategic Projects at the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation in New York. His portfolio encompassed grantmaking in the arts and humanities to research universities in South Africa, Uganda, Ghana, Egypt, and Lebanon and to pan-African and pan-Arab institutions. During this period, he made grants of almost R1 billion to universities in Africa and the Middle East

Saleem began his academic career in 1989 at the University of the Western Cape, where he eventually become the Director of its (Higher) Education Policy Unit.

In 1999, he was appointed the first Chief Executive Officer of the Council on Higher Education, which advises the Minister of Higher Education & Training on higher education policy issues and is responsible for quality assurance in higher education. He worked closely with Prof. Kadar Asmal and Dr. Naledi Pandor.

In 2006, Saleem became vice-chancellor of Rhodes University, the first black South African to hold this post in 102 years, committed to advancing social equity, promoting academic quality, contributing to the development needs of South Africa and ensuring institutional cultural transformation.

In 2004 he was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Free State for ‘outstanding achievements in the shaping of policies and practices of the higher education environment.’ In 2008 he received a second honorary doctorate from the University of York, his alma mater. In the same year he received the Inyathelo Exceptional Philanthropy Award in recognition of excellence and leadership in Personal South African Philanthropy. In 2015, Rhodes University awarded him an honorary doctorate. 

Saleem is author of Black Student Politics, Higher Education and Apartheid, and Black Man, You are on Your Own; co-author of National Policy and a Regional Response in South African Higher Education, and co-editor of Apartheid Education and Popular Struggles in South Africa. In 2012 Jacana Press and Brill published his book, The Forgotten People: Political Banishment under Apartheid. His new book, Tennis, Apartheid and Social Justice, was published in early 2023 by UKZN Press.

His 60 book chapters, journal articles, policy reports, and 40 newspaper opinion pieces are concerned especially with questions of equity, redress, and social justice in and through universities and the decolonization and transformation of universities in societies that were colonized.

He currently directs a research project on the Histories of Universities in South Africa that involves several universities and scholars. His own research is towards monographs on a history of universities in South Africa and his time as Rhodes University vice-chancellor.

He serves on the boards of the International Consortium of Critical Theory Programs, the Centre for Higher Education Trust, and Our Compelling Interest, based at the University of Michigan, and is a trustee of the Harold Wolpe Memorial Trust.

He is a former chairperson of Universities South Africa and of the Association of African Universities Scientific Committee on Higher Education.
 
Click here for Abridged Curriculum Vitae

 
 


FACULTY CONTACT

T: +27 51 401 2240 or humanities@ufs.ac.za

Postgraduate:
Marizanne Cloete: +27 51 401 2592

Undergraduate:
Neliswa Emeni-Tientcheu: +27 51 401 2536
Phyllis Masilo: +27 51 401 9683

Humanities photo next to contact block

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