Professor Zeblon Vilakazi takes up his appointment as Wits University’s 15th Vice-Chancellor in January 2021. A nuclear physicist, it’s in the nature of his research to understand life from the smallest particle to the cosmos. His cultural perspective is equally expansive as he communicates in six languages: isiZulu, Sesotho, English, Afrikaans, French and German. He reads [...]
The line between what you study at university and the career you ultimately pursue has become increasingly blurred, says the Governor of the South African Reserve Bank, Lesetja Kganyago, who was conferred with an Honorary Doctorate of Commerce by Nelson Mandela University, during its online Business and Economic Sciences Graduation Ceremony on 17 December 2020. [...]
“You can’t biologise or racialise culture. My idea of knowing myself in the world is African, but my skin colour is not the determinant. This reduction of people to one template of colour is vicious racism and something that was weaponised by history. But it is not culture. Culture is a complex of multi-layered realties [...]
You can see the first light of day on the tips of the cattle’s horns; you can hear the downtown hustle and the chants of the Xhosa ancestors; you can feel the rolling rhythms of the Eastern Cape; you can touch the world through its folds: London, Paris, Milan, New York, Berlin, Amsterdam, Oslo, Tokyo, [...]
Justice Mandisa Maya is the first woman President of South Africa’s Supreme Court of Appeal, which dates back to 1910. “The most challenging aspect of being a judge is the enormous responsibility you carry in resolving society’s disputes and determining people’s lives, including whether a person must go to prison for life,” says Justice Maya. [...]
“Let me sit closer to you,” says Wits Business School MBA alumna Gail Kelly as we position ourselves around the imposing table in the VIP dining room at Wits Business School. This is the woman Forbes listed in 2010 as the eighth most powerful woman in the world; the first female CEO of Westpac, one [...]
Heather Dugmore speaks to Wits alumnus Koos Bekker about communication, China and transition. Markets ebb and flow, but one constant that Naspers Chair Koos Bekker understands is that people need to connect with one another and the world. “Communication technology has transformed the globe in two short decades,” he says. “For example: of the businesses [...]
Wits alumnus and SRC President (2010/11), Mukovhe Morris Masutha, is helping hundreds of students from rural areas and townships throughout South Africa to succeed at university. Mukovhe Masutha well deserves the title of Wits Graduate – his qualities of commitment, humanity and intelligence extend far beyond himself and his achievements. In 2010, while he was [...]
A much bigger world out there Celebrated South African storyteller, author, poet, actress, playwright and director, Gcina Mhlophe, has travelled the world, sharing her stories. On receipt of an Honorary Doctorate from Rhodes University on the 11 April this year, she explains that of all the experiences and awards her rich life has offered, she [...]
Nurturing an African Einstein Professor Neil Turok’s goal is to unlock and nurture mathematical and scientific talent across Africa, so that within our lifetime we are celebrating an African Einstein. On the 10 April, at the 2014 graduation ceremony, Rhodes University proudly conferred an Honorary Doctorate on him. Johannesburg-born cosmologist and theoretical physicist Professor Neil [...]
