Questions were raised about the performance of embattled Wits University vice-chancellor Norma Reid Birley months before this week’s council decision to probe her conduct, well-placed university sources said on Thursday.
Now the sources speculate that Reid Birley’s possible suspension will be discussed when the 40-member Wits council holds a special meeting on Tuesday. The council has already announced that she will be the subject of a conduct and performance review by advocate John Myburgh.
The sources said they understood council chairperson Edwin Cameron had confronted Reid Birley six months ago with ”noise” about her conduct from a range of sources, including university managers and donors.
The vice-chancellor, a British aca-demic who has steered Wits for a mere 15 months of her five-year contract, had stonewalled criticism. She had also resisted the negative finding of a 12-month performance appraisal that Cameron conducted.
The Mail & Guardian understands that a succession of her management actions, affecting such crucial matters as the allocation of funding, have come under fire from senior managers.
Also at issue, it is understood, is the amount of time Reid Birley has been absent from campus during her brief tenure. Not all the absences could be attributed to the death of her husband in May and her subsequent thrombosis, for which she was briefly hospitalised, an insider said.
She had been conspicuously absent during her first test on campus, a large demonstration by Muslim students after the September 11 terror attacks last year. She had also failed to attend a number of senate meetings, which the vice-chancellor normally chairs.
In a controversial statement this week — seen to have weakened her position — she said she had received no notice of a statement by Cameron at a council meeting last Friday voicing ”extreme dissatisfaction” with her management of Wits
She said Cameron had based his complaint on ”information he had either solicited or obtained from a few members of staff … at the most senior level of the university”.
”Neither written nor verbal evidence were provided, nor was a prima facie case for the statement’s claims provided.”
She said the thrust of Cameron’s complaint — that her way of working with senior colleagues was unacceptable — was devoid of specific allegations.
Reid Birley said she would not accept a golden handshake offered by the council, understood to be between R4-million and R5-million, ”in lieu of a principled resolution affirming my integrity, professional ability and commitment to leading this university”.
Reid Birley had not answered questions by the time the M&G went to print.
Her suggestion that Cameron is personally spearheading a campaign against her appeared to be contradicted by a swift response to her statement by deputy vice-chancellors Loyiso Nongxa and Richard Pienaar, finance executive director Andre de Wet and registrar Derek Swemmer.
Voicing ”deep regret and concern” over her statement, the four said they could not agree with its factual content. ”The statement will probably prove highly divisive and potentially damaging to the university, and therefore we endorse the inquiry mandated by council.”
In his response, Cameron said the ”inaccuracies and misstatements” by Reid Birley were symptomatic of ”the immensely difficult issues of management dysfunction, truth, communication and trust” that had forced the council’s intervention.
The fact that Nongxa has ”put fresh air” between himself and Reid Birley is seen as highly significant, because he succeeded Leila Patel as Wits vice- principal when she resigned in January.
Relations between Reid Birley and Patel were deeply troubled.
University critics concede Reid Birley remains popular with some aca-demics, students and workers. The five executive deans who are also part of the senior management team have not declared their positions.
Deputy vice-chancellor Thandwa Mthembu has also been silent, though sources point out that he joined the university only in April.
The sources insist that Reid Birley has alienated many of those who work most closely with her. Two of her executive secretaries, one of whom served three years under previous vice-chancellor Colin Bundy, had quit over her management style, they said.