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Mr David Noko appointed as Chairperson of the UFS Council

17 September 2021 | Story Lacea Loader | Photo Supplied

Mr David Noko copy — Mr David Noko, newly appointed Chairperson of the UFS Council.

During its third scheduled meeting for the year that took place virtually on 17 September 2021, the Council of the University of the Free State (UFS) appointed Mr David Noko as Chairperson for a term of four years, as from 1 October 2021.

Mr Noko, who was Deputy Chairperson of the Council, will take over the Chairpersonship from Dr Willem Louw, whose term will come to an end on 30 September 2021.

“On behalf of the Council, I congratulate Mr Noko and wish him all the best during his term of leading the Council of the UFS. With the skills and competence available in the Council, complemented by Prof Francis Petersen, Rector and Vice-Chancellor, and his team, he has access to a formidable group of individuals to support him in the execution of this very important role,” said Dr Louw during the meeting.

“I am humbled and honoured for the opportunity and thank the Council for their confidence and trust in me. Since serving on the Council, I have become an ambassador of the University of the Free State, talking to many stakeholders about the institution and how much it should be supported. I am here to serve and look forward to doing so in a professional and dignified manner, together with everyone on the Council and with the leadership of the university,” said Mr Noko.

Mr Noko is well-known and respected internationally as a business leader. He has a National Higher Diploma in Mechanical Engineering from the Technikon Witwatersrand (now the University of Johannesburg), a Management Development Programme (MDP) Certificate from the University of the Witwatersrand, and a Postgraduate Diploma in Company Directorships from the Graduate Institute of Management and Technology. He also completed a master’s degree in Business Administration at the Heriot-Watt University and a Senior Executive Programme at the London Business School.

Before retiring from the corporate world in 2019, Mr Noko was the Executive Vice-President of AngloGold Ashanti, where he was responsible for the company’s global Sustainable Development and Government Relations portfolios. His career began at the General Electric Company (GEC) before moving to South African Breweries in 1987, and then to Pepsi-Cola International in 1994, where he gained extensive international exposure and global experience.

In 1999, Mr Noko was appointed as Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Air Chefs (Pty) Ltd in South Africa, before joining De Beers in 2002. In 2006, he was appointed Managing Director and CEO of De Beers Consolidated Mines Limited (DBCM), and in 2010 he founded his own company, CelaCorp (Pty) Ltd. He also founded ESG Advisory (Pty) Ltd, a company providing advisory services to corporates relating to environment, social and governance matters, mostly focusing on mining companies.

He is a member of the Institute of Directors SA and served on the boards of Royal Bafokeng Platinum Limited, Harmony Gold (Deputy Chairman), AstraPak Ltd, and PlatiStone Holdings (Chairman). He is currently a board director of African Rainbow Minerals Ltd, Tongaat Hulett Ltd, and Aveng Moolmans (Pty) Ltd.

The Council also thanked Dr Louw for his service and for the impeccable leadership he displayed during the time he served.

News Archive

IRSJ marks five years of championing social justice

2016-08-12

Description: IRSJ 5 year Tags: IRSJ 5 year

Members of the Advisory Board of the IRSJ,
Prof Michalinos Zembylas (Open University
of Cyprus), Prof Shirley Anne Tate (Leeds
University, England), and Prof Relebohile
Moletsane (University of KwaZulu-Natal),
listen to a speaker on the programme.
Photo: Lihlumelo Toyana

The Institute for Reconciliation and Social Justice (IRSJ) marked its fifth anniversary with a function on 27 July 2016 in the Reitz Hall of the Centenary Complex on the Bloemfontein Campus of the University of the Free State (UFS). Earlier that day, the Advisory Board of the IRSJ, chaired by Prof Jonathan Jansen, Vice-Chancellor and Rector of the UFS, hosted their annual meeting.

A new book was also launched, co-authored by JC van der Merwe, Deputy-Director at the IRSJ and Dionne van Reenen, researcher and PhD candidate at the IRSJ. It is entitled Transformation and Legitimation in Post-apartheid Universities: Reading Discourses from ‘Reitz’. The function featured not only reflections on the IRSJ, but a four-member panel discussion of the book and higher education in 2016.

The IRSJ came into being officially at the UFS in January 2011. Prof André Keet, Director of the IRSJ, said: “With a flexibility and trust not easily found in the higher education sector, the university management gave us the latitude and support to fashion an outfit that responds to social life within and outside the borders of the university, locally and globally.”

The IRSJ has not hesitated to be bold and
courageous in reforming ... traditional policies."

Prof Jansen went on to mention three things he finds appealing about the IRSJ: “Thanks to Prof Keet and his team’s vision and understanding of how important it is for students to have a space in which they can learn how to be, learn how to think, and learn how to contribute, the IRSJ has become a place where students can learn about things that they might not learn in the classroom. Second, it created, for the first time, a space where members of the LGBTIQ community could gather in one place. And third, it speaks to the intellectual life of the university, as evidenced by the research and publications produced over the past few years.”

Prof Jansen added: “The IRSJ will only be successful to the extent that we have safe spaces, courageous spaces, in which not only black students talk to themselves, but where black and white students talk together about their difficulties. If you’re entangled, you can’t get out of [that] unless you speak to the other person.”

Prof Michalinos Zembylas of the Open University of Cyprus and member of the Advisory Board, said of the IRSJ: “The works produced by the institute in this short time have been valuable to this community and beyond, because they recognise the complexities of education, ... while pushing the boundaries of how to translate theoretical discussions into practical, everyday conditions. ... For example, the IRSJ has not hesitated to be bold and courageous in reforming some traditional policies in this university—remnants of an ambivalent past that reproduced inequality and disadvantage.

In reflecting on how the IRSJ came into being during her opening remarks, Dr Lis Lange, Vice-Rector: Academic at the UFS, said that it has always been “dedicated to transformation.” She added that it “gathered the energy and creativity of some of our most promising student leaders.” She concluded: “For me, the greatest success of the Institute, besides publications and local and international networks, is the fact that something that started in the margins is being asked today to come closer to the centre, to play a larger role in the structural transformation of the university.”

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