David Macfarlane and Glenda Daniels
The hot seat of Wits University vice-chancellor looks set to be occupied for the first time by a woman.
Two of the three shortlisted candidates are women: Professor Leila Patel, currently Wits’s deputy vice-chancellor and vice-principal, and Professor Norma Reid, deputy vice-chancellor of the University of Plymouth in the United Kingdom. The other candidate is Professor Kuzvinetsa Dzvimbo, who is now vice-chancellor of Zimbabwe Open University.
“For the sake of continuity Leila Patel would be the best person,” says a
senior Wits academic. “She is strong, determined and competent although she didn’t expect to be thrust into this role by [current vice-chancellor] Colin Bundy’s leaving before implementing his changes, which academics are very unhappy and feel let down over.
“If Patel gets the job,” she says, “substantial gains will be made for
women over the next few years. Unfortunately, however, many good people will be overlooked in the process. The country will lose out if white men feel unable to apply for leadership positions, for instance.”
The strongest candidate appears to be Patel, who has been part of the restructuring of the university for nearly three years, as deputy vice-chancellor.
Patel, who holds a Wits PhD on social welfare policy options for South Africa, was director general in the national Department of Welfare.
She started her academic career while doing postgraduate studies in 1976 as a tutor at the University of the Western Cape (UWC). She then went on to lecture in the department of sociology at UWC; she worked at Wits University between 1984 and 1990 in the department of social work in community development and social policy.
The other two candidates are little-known in South Africa, supporting the view of some academics at the university that there has not been a particularly strong field of applicants.
Reid is a British mathematician whose main work has been on statistical analyses of health care provision in the UK. All her prior academic posts have been at British universities, and her experience includes 12 years’ senior academic management as research centre director, department head and faculty dean.
Dzvimbo, vice-chancellor of Zimbabwe Open University, specialises in education management and has taught at local universities such as Rand Afrikaans University and Wits.
He is “committed to a broader vision of maintaining Wits’s vision of being
a world-class institution serving the needs of its urban community, South Africa, the Southern African Development Community region and Africa in general”, he says.
Dzvimbo would bring years of experience in organisational development,
capacity building and conflict management from involvement as a consultant in the Open Learning Society of Southern Africa, the Gauteng Department of Education, the Electoral Institute of South Africa, Eskom, Vista University, Ministry of Education in Mozambique, the Southern African Association of Academic Development, the National Commission of Higher Education, Unicef and USAid.
Interviews of the three candidates will be held on March 7.
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