Spaces need scholars to deliberate in community and pursue crossdisciplinary work.
A new book provides a useful critique of the impact the economic-centred society is having on the purpose of higher-education institutions.
Peter Vale writes an open letter to focus the new incumbent’s priorities and tasks.
Mduduzi Manana writes to Professor Peter Vale to say he is committed to delivering quality education in South Africa.
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/ 3 February 2012
If we were able to rise to the occasion of football’s greatest spectacle, surely we should be able to focus the same energy in improving education.
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/ 29 November 2011
Kader Asmal’s biography prompts questions about how seriously politicians take higher education.
A journey Down Under is cause for reflection on the kind of legacy prosperity brings.
Accomplished philosopher Paul Cilliers still had his best work ahead of him
From home renovations to book sales: A week in the life of a relocated academic.
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/ 28 January 2011
Diary of a migration from tranquil Rhodes to seething Jo’burg, by <b>Peter Vale</b>.
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/ 3 December 2010
It may be time to reinsert the liberal arts curriculum into undergraduate degrees argue <b>J Edward Chamberlin and Peter Vale</b>.
The Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study is an enclave for research where scholars can explore ideas, think — and get a good lunch.
<b>Peter Vale</b> has been associated with Rhodes University for nearly 40 years. He shares the notes from his diary of his last week there.
“Never fight the crocodile in the water”: the phrase has been much on my own mind since I was asked to join the planning committee…
Peter Vale tackles Higher Education Minister Blade Nzimande about the neglected sector, humanities.
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/ 29 February 2008
Incredulity: how else was one to react to the news that an American think tank had recently dished out a series of awards to other think tanks — including the locally based Institute for Security Studies (ISS). On a little reflection it is easy to see how this is possible. As political philosopher Hannah Arendt once remarked: "The trouble with think-tankers is that they don’t think!"
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/ 19 February 2008
Notwithstanding signs of increasing commitment by the state, many worries continue over the future of South Africa’s higher education system. The elephant in the room remains the fact that the system is not reproducing itself. Many whispers in the corners suggest that the system may now border on being unsustainable.
A former vice-chancellor of Stellenbosch University and a vastly experienced academic and administrator who has held senior positions in Australia, Chris Brink leaves our shores soon to take up the vice-chancellorship of Newcastle University in the United Kingdom. In this interview, he is provoked him into some plain speaking by six wide-ranging questions about the local tertiary scene.
Despite the recent teachers’ strike, things have gone well for Naledi Pandor, the Minister of Education. But surely her predecessors will have told Pandor that dragons, far more fierce than some vice-chancellors, lurk in the gloomy waters around South Africa’s universities. After 10 years of "torrid government interference" in universities, Peter Vale offers six of the best to the new Minister of Education.
Over the past decade, South Africa has given up an astonishing number of stories about its dark past. Some places, we can be sure, will never reveal their pasts except, perhaps, in the novels that remain to be written. One place where stories have still to be told and which will not wait for the novels are South Africa’s universities. The links between political power and organised forms of knowledge come into focus at a Rhodes University conference this month.
Bowed down by race legislation in the old South Africa, higher education (HE) appears to be taking a political beating from the many, many demands of the new, as this personal anecdote illustrates.
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/ 14 September 2001
The US needs to reconsider its simple-minded approach to the world.
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/ 9 December 1988
A non-interview with the banned Govan Mbeki about the day when he last saw Nelson Mandela.