David Macfarlane
The University of Natal is ignoring its own legal advice and pressing ahead to appoint a new vice-chancellor before its merger with the University of Durban-Westville (UDW).
Senior academics at the university are dismayed that the council is persisting with the selection process and express concern at the damage this could cause to the merger.
Natal last year advertised its vice-chancellorship for a standard permanent appointment, which has always been for five years. But the university’s imminent merger with UDW means that the appointment will be far shorter than that 15 months or less, depending on timeframes for the merger that the government is still to announce.
This is where Natal’s legal difficulties could lie if it goes ahead and appoints the current sole candidate, Dr Malegapuru Makgoba, who is president of the Medical Research Council. Three legal opinions given to the university concur that the post should be readvertised to specify the shorter term of appointment.
Failing this, the university risks contravening employment legislation in that it has in effect excluded from consideration potential candidates who might have applied had they known that a short-term appointment was intended.
But the chairperson of Natal’s council, Alec Rogoff, says: “We have no legal advice that the current selection process is flawed. Our advice is that it is okay to proceed and there is no reason to stop the process.” Senior personnel at the university who have seen the legal advice, from two advocates and the university’s attorneys, flatly contradict Rogoff. The Mail & Guardian understands too that the university’s executive recently forwarded the legal advice to Rogoff, and that the advice has been discussed in staff forums on both the Durban and Pietermaritzburg campuses.
Further blurring a picture that Natal academics say they find bewildering and alarming, Rogoff told the M&G: “There is no reference to the length of appointment in the original advertisement, and no timing [of the appointment] has ever been discussed … We haven’t even discussed a package.” But in an apparent contradiction, he also said: “We’ve made it clear to Makgoba that his appointment would apply only until the merger with UDW … My interpretation of the legalities is the correct one. Those who suggest otherwise are stirring and being mischievous.”
The selection process has been marked by controversy and dissent within the university for some time, suggesting a growing rift between the council which is responsible for driving the selection process and ultimately makes the decision on a new appointment and academic staff.
There is widespread puzzlement at the council’s determination to secure an appointment before the merger with UDW, which is one of the recommendations made by the ministerially appointed National Working Group earlier this year.
Minister of Education Kader Asmal is expected to formulate his responses to the recommendations for Cabinet approval later this month; and it is widely expected that Natal’s merger with UDW will form part of the package.
One scenario Natal’s legal advice envisages is that, once the merger takes place, the position of the newly appointed vice-chancellor could become redundant, obliging the university to pay a substantial severance package.
Senior Natal academics argue in addition that, when the National Working Group released its recommendations in February, it became an act of extreme bad faith to continue the selection procedure. A second candidate for the vice-chancellorship, Professor David Maughan Brown (currently acting vice-chancellor), withdrew his candidacy in February for reasons the M&G understands concern the advisability of making an appointment before the merger with UDW.
In the week the recommendations were published, the university’s executive announced that the “changed circumstances” warranted asking the selection committee to consider “where this leaves the process of appointing a new vice-chancellor”. The committee referred the matter to the council, which decided to continue the selection process, but with a shorter term of office for the new appointment. Rogoff told the M&G this week: “The university wants leadership in place to guide the merger. There are no cogent reasons for halting the process.”
A senior Natal University source told the M&G that UDW vice-chancellor Professor Mapule Ramashala asked Natal to put the vice-chancellorship and other senior appointments on hold until details concerning the merger are clarified; but that Natal’s council is ignoring this request. Ramashala could not be reached for comment.