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UFS Thought-Leader Series: Student protest action, politics, and higher education

20 October 2023 | Story Samkelo Fetile

The University of the Free State (UFS) is pleased to present a panel discussion titled, Student protest action, politics, and higher education, which is part of the 2023 Thought-Leader Webinar Series. Join Prof Adam Habib and Dr Max Price for a discussion about their respective experiences in leadership positions during the #RhodesMustFall and #FeesMustFall student protest movements, the lessons learnt during these tumultuous times, and how these events continue to influence the current landscape in the higher education sector in South Africa and further afield. The discussion will reflect on their recent books Rebels and Rage: Reflecting on #FeesMustFall, and Statues and Storms, and will be facilitated by Prof Francis Petersen, the Vice-Chancellor and Principal of the UFS.

Date: Tuesday 21 November 2023

Time: 13:00-14:30

Click to view document WATCH: vimeo.com/kovsies/tls23

For further information, contact Alicia Pienaar at pienaaran1@ufs.ac.za.

Some of the topics discussed by leading experts in 2022 included, Crime in South Africa – who is to blame; Are our glasses half full or half empty; What needs to be done to power up South Africa; A look into the future of South Africa. This year’s webinar series commenced with a discussion on Threats to South Africa’s stability and security challenges, followed by A culture of acceptance – is this South Africa’s greatest threat? and The need for a global and regional plan / approach to respond to the consequences of the Russia-Ukraine war.

Facilitator:

Prof Francis Petersen

Vice-Chancellor and Principal, UFS

Panellists:

Prof Adam Habib

Director: School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London

Dr Max Price

Emeritus Vice-Chancellor, University of Cape Town; academic and consultant

Bios of speakers:

Prof Adam Habib

Prof Adam Habib is an academic, researcher, activist, administrator, and well-known public intellectual. A Professor of Political Science, Prof Habib has more than 30 years of academic, research, and administration expertise, spanning five universities and multiple local and international institutions.

Prior to his appointment as Director of SOAS, he was Vice-Chancellor and Principal of the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) in Johannesburg, South Africa between 2013 and 2020. He has also served as Deputy Vice-Chancellor of Research at the University of Johannesburg, Executive Director of Democracy and Governance at the Human Sciences Research Council, and as Director of the Centre for Civil Society and Professor of Development at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. He is widely published, including his two well-received monographs, South Africa's Suspended Revolution: Hopes and Prospects and Rebels and Rage: Reflecting on #FeesMustFall.

Prof Habib’s academic contributions resulted in his election to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, in addition to serving as a fellow of both the African Academy of Sciences and the Academy of Science of South Africa. He also serves on the Council of the United Nations University.

Dr Max Price

Dr Max Price was appointed Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cape Town in July 2008, completing his ten-year term in June 2018. During the first seven years of his term, UCT experienced growth and success in research and teaching, as well as global recognition. This continued during the last three years but was overshadowed by the Rhodes Must Fall and Fees Must Fall protests during 2015 to 2017. Dr Price led the university through these storms and back to safe harbour in 2018.

Dr Price studied Medicine at the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits), during which time he became deeply involved in student politics, becoming SRC president a year after the Soweto uprising. He subsequently did a PPE degree at Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar. Following clinical work in academic and rural hospitals in South Africa, he gained a master’s degree in Community Health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and then worked as an academic in the areas of health policy and economics, rural health services, and health science education.

He was dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences at Wits for ten years. He now consults in public health, higher education, strategic leadership, and advises foundations on grant making. He is currently a scholar in residence at the Atlantic Institute. He is the author of Statues and Storms: Leading through change, published in 2023.

News Archive

“My time at the UFS was the golden gem of my career”

2016-07-04

Description: Zig Gibson Tags: Zig Gibson

Prof Alan St Clair Gibson
Photo: Oteng Mpete

“My time at the University of the Free State (UFS) was the golden gem of my career. I have worked at medical schools or biomedical research centres in the United Kingdom, United States and at some of the top medical schools in South Africa, but working at the UFS was one of the highlights of my career,” says Prof Alan St Clair Gibson, Head of the UFS School of Medicine.

After spending just over two years at the UFS, Prof St Clair Gibson resigned from the institution in June 2016 and will take up the position of Dean: Health and Human Performance Sciences at the Waikato University in New Zealand in mid-July, where he will assist to establish a new faculty for all the health-science disciplines. “It was a privilege to work at the UFS. I come from a strong research background and wanted to grow research at the university, which I achieved. I came to the UFS because of the Academic and Human Projects and am proud of what has been achieved at the School of Medicine during the time I was here,” he said.

Prof St Clair Gibson highlighted some of these achievements, including the development of a management infrastructure across the disciplines of the school. “The establishment of an executive management committee for the school, as well as research champions in departments, highlighted the importance of proper governance and strategic management. By developing data dashboards, my management team and I could develop an understanding of research income and productivity, how the school works, what the role of teaching and learning is, and how the school could benefit in terms of third-stream income from the many contracts obtained by its academic staff. As a result, contracts and the financial management model of the school have also been reconfigured to the benefit of the university so that the institution and school can benefit from it,” he said.

His strong belief in an open-door policy has made staff feel part of the environment and it has created an atmosphere of equality and inclusivity. He believes in staff development and has, for instance, established leadership and management courses for heads of departments. Another factor to be proud of is the increase in the number of young researchers who recently joined the school, such as Prof Ross Tucker, who is one of the foremost sport scientists in the country. “It is a fact that staff retire or resign in all schools and departments of any university. It is also true that these departures offer opportunities to bring new academic and professional staff into the UFS. In fact, for the first time virtually every department in the School of Medicine now has a full-time Head of Department and 46 new staff were appointed since January 2015,” said Prof St Clair Gibson.

“I am especially proud of contributing, together with the senior leadership of the UFS, to stabilise the relationship with the Free State Department of Health (DoH). With the assistance of these parties, as well as my executive management team, we could find a better way of working together to the benefit of the school and the province.’’

Transforming the student profile to be representative of the country’s demographics is another milestone Prof St Clair Gibson will remember. “The intake of black and white students is of such a nature that we now have a much more balanced ratio of black and white undergraduate students than before.”

“I wanted to stay longer to see the effect of all the changes I made at the school, but the deanship is an offer I cannot refuse. I would have liked to see a steadier increase in the number of permanent clinical staff and have worked hard with both the UFS management and the DoH to try and achieve that; but more work needs to be done.”

I have worked with a number of fantastic staff members at the school, who are determined to do good in a challenging environment. I am amazed at the energy of the university leadership and how the Human and Academic Projects are executed. My wish for the university is to maintain and grow its standards and for the School of Medicine to maintain its reputation as one of the best schools in the country. I will always be a proud alumnus of the UFS,” he said.

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