HAZEL FRIEDMAN reports on a stormy debate raging in Grahamstown around the appointment of a foreigner as the new head of Rhodes University’s fine arts department
‘The Department of Foreign Relations.”
That’s what angry staff and students have dubbed the Fine Arts Department at Rhodes University. They are reacting to the controversial appointment of British artist and academic Mark Hayward above local applicants to head the Fine Arts Department. They accuse the review committee who chose Hayward of “a lack of transparency and insight into the needs of South African art”.
But committee members are in turn yelling, “Sour grapes!” They insist that Hayward was chosen simply because he was the best applicant.
The controversy began after the former head of the department, Professor Robert Brookes, went into early retirement at the end of 1996. In keeping with procedure, the faculty advertised the post and a review committee consisting of academics across the board and one independent member began shortlisting candidates. “Our policy is to attract the best candidates,” says Bruce Smith, the university’s personnel director. Applicants appear before the committee to make a presentation, from which a shortlist is compiled.
Staff and students are supposed to give their own opinions, but lecturers claim that in this case they were not properly consulted on the final appointment.
The final list drawn up included Hilary Graham, a fine arts lecturer at Fort Hare University; Ian Calder from KwaZulu-Natal, Professor Estelle Marais from Unibo and Hayward, who is an artist, art historian and administrator working in Northern England. Former Director of Culture for Johannesburg, Christopher Till, applied for the position but did not make the shortlist.
The versions of events that follow, as told by the staff and review committee, differ markedly from one another. Several staff members insist that the selection process lacked transparency because no one knew the exact number of applicants or whether anyone from Southern Africa had applied for the post. They also criticise the committee for including only one person with an art background – Melanie Hillebrand who runs a gallery in Port Elizabeth. Further, they insist that they are not acting out of a feeling of sour grapes.
In protest against the appointment artist Noel Hodnett, who has been with the department for 25 years and is head of drawing and painting, has resigned. Hodnett did not apply for the position of department head and he has refused to comment on the controversy.
But a fellow lecturer, who preferred to remain anonymous, was less reticent. “We have nothing against overseas academics working in South Africa in general or Hayward in particular. But after Professor Brookes retired we embarked on a review of the department’s curriculum, with the aim of transforming it in accordance with post- apartheid imperatives.” He adds: “No matter how qualified Hayward might be, he cannot possibly hope to grasp some the complexities facing art and art education at this moment in our history.”
A member of the eight-person review committee says the staff and students should not be disgruntled as “Hayward was the best candidate. He is a cutting edge artist, art historian and administrator with over 10 years’ experience, and he complies with all the requirements. Basically the staff are perpetuating an outdated paradigm, according to which Rhodes graduates were always appointed to the position”.
Yet none of the staff actually applied for the post of department head. In fact, they specifically asked for the position to be advertised both regionally and internationally in order, they say, to make the process as “transparent and democratic as possible”.
“If the selection panel was not satisfied with the standard of the local applicants,” said another equally embittered lecturer, “they should have re-advertised and embarked on a policy of proactive headhunting. What they have done shows a total lack of understanding or concern for South African art.”