Gustav Thiel
A strong lobby of lecturers and students at the University of Stellenbosch is calling for the head of rector Professor Andreas van Wyk, who they accuse of being autocratic and defeating efforts to transform the university.
Van Wyk, who has been embroiled in a number of controversies since taking charge of the university in 1990, is described by a member of the university’s 1996 Students’ Representative Council, who dealt with him on a daily basis, as “a highly immature person who constantly allows personal feelings to influence his better judgment, which ultimately could destroy the image of the university”.
In June 1996, Van Wyk angered senior lecturers when he personally approved windfall cheques of between R127 000 and R200 000 for himself and five senior administrative staff members. The payouts were in lieu of sabbatical leave, he said. Van Wyk was later cleared of any wrongdoing
Van Wyk then angered lecturers in the arts faculty when he told them that 58 posts would have to be cut this year. While the matter is under discussion, some lecturers say they do not approve of the way he announced his unilateral decision.
Students say while Van Wyk professes that he supports free speech, he makes it very difficult for a culture of openness to prevail at the university.
A senior staff member of the student’s newspaper, Die Matie, says Van Wyk regularly calls writers to complain about articles in the paper and to ask them to explain their actions.
A senior lecturer in the arts department says: “It is absolutely scary how much Van Wyk knows about the personal affairs of students.”
The transformation process at the university, for which Van Wyk is responsible, was put under a spotlight this week when six lecturers -Annie Gagiano, Ermien van Pletzen, Sue Nuttall, Rob Gaylard and Edwin Hees of the English department and Mhlobo Jadizweni of the African languages department – raised concerns about the process.
In a letter addressed to the university’s strategic planning committee, the lecturers – who say they have the support of the majority of staff in the arts faculty – raised “urgent questions” about “the working of and the inter-relationships among the committee, the management of the university generally and the university council specifically”.
They say the biggest stumbling block in the way of making Stellenbosch’s transformation process credible is that the planning committee “omits certain important and highly relevant groupings and persons”.
“Stellenbosch is still ruled by a white clique controlled by Van Wyk, who is a relic from the past and is considered by many open-minded people at the university as the major stumbling block for change,” Gagiano says.
“It is extremely unfortunate and inappropriate that the strategic-planning committee is so overwhelmingly white. As far as public image is concerned, the way it is presently constituted undermines its avowed aims. Additionally, a much better gender balance is required … the hierarchy of the power to implement decisions remains shrouded in obscurity.”
Gagiano says that while Van Wyk is only an ex officio member of the committee, he “sabotages” its meetings by “manipulating” members to agree to his plans.
“It is common knowledge that Van Wyk gets what he wants at the university. The problem is that he is the worst possible rector for the university at this time of change,” she says.
Van Wyk says he only attended three of the five meetings of the committee and denied manipulating them.
He added that the committee “is a working committee which can only operate if numbers are kept small. The institutional forum to be established will enjoy wider representation.”
Werner Scholtz, the rector’s personal assistant who works in the rectorate, replied in a scathing letter to Gagiano.
He calls her a “prima donna” who “snipes from the side, causing disparate feelings and reactions”.
Scholtz adds: “University colleagues enjoy sniping at each other; that being a prima donna seems to be a desirable state rather than a lamentable one; and that the mountains around us have some claustrophobic influence among staff members.”
Gagiano says Scholtz’s letter shows how little concern the rector has for his opponents. “It is not as if we only raise these concerns now. We have been concerned with Van Wyk’s actions for some time and think he should go. Our only concern is that Stellenbosch transforms in line with what is happening in the rest of the country.”
Van Wyk says he is not aware of a lobby calling for his head, but adds that Scholtz’s views “certainly do not represent those of the rector or the university” since Scholtz is only a personal assistant to him.