To ensure that postgraduate students get the most out of campus life – and manage to graduate and move on to productive careers – UWC has appointed a full-time Director of Postgraduate Studies to run postgraduate seminars and workshops.
Spotlight on: Prof Jimmy Ellis Prof Jimmy Ellis, BA Hons (UWC), MA (UNC-Chapel Hill), P h D ( U N C ) , h a i l s f ro m Swellendam. He first enrolled at UWC in 1964 for a BA Social Science. His long and illustrious career included 31 years at UWC (27 as a lecturer in Sociology), and 12 years at the University of Johannesburg (first as Head: Community Development & Inter nationalisation and later as Director: Public Affairs). Jimmy retired in 2011 as the Director of International Relations at the University of Johannesburg. His wife Henrietta Ferguson is a UWC alumna, (BA Social Science, BA Hons Social Work) who also holds a Masters in Social Work from UNC-Chapel Hill. They have four children. Their son William (MA Sociology, UWC, 1998) has lectured in Anthropology and Sociology at UWC since 2004. Q. Who was your biggest influence in terms of your decision to follow a career in tertiary education? A. I must say that the inspiration definitely came from my grandfather, my dad and my paternal uncle, although the actual encouragement came from my first professor in Sociology. My original choice was to go into the ministry but I was not selected for training for the profession. The next choice I was encouraged to follow was social work. Having returned to UWC to come and work there a year after graduation, I then started a career in tertiary education that stretched over 43 years. Q. Why did you choose to study and work at UWC? A. The choice was not really a choice as we were caught up in the apartheid dilemma of the time – to go to [the then-named University College of the Western Cape] UCWC under protest, or apply for a permit to go to a “white” university, íf you had the right grades and the money! We were actively discouraged from going to UCWC while at high school.
The choice to work there initially followed when an opportunity to go back was offered after a rather unsatisfactory job in a government office situation, governed by apartheid prescriptions. Over the years the choice to work at UWC was strengthened by a commitment to be part of a transformation process that grew stronger over time. Q. What’s your most enduring memory of your days as a UWC student? A. The most enduring memory of the first stint (1964-67) has less to do with the university than the community of Bellville South in which most of us boarded with families and spent our social lives. The small number of students on campus served as a support and encouragement to one another under conditions of severe challenges, academically, politically and socially. On campus [I remember] our facing up to the ideological drivel dished up by administrators and some lecturers (Gans Meiring: “I’ve promised Dr Verwoerd that I will further the aims of separate development at the UCWC”; a lecturer: “Is it not wonderful that coloured people can now be trained to work with their own people?”). One also had to endure scorn for attending an apartheid institution from friends attending institutions such as UCT. Q. What’s the greatest challenge in tertiary education in South Africa right now? A. The greatest challenge to tertiary education is not to sink to levels of mediocrity in the light of the large numbers of students coming into tertiary education [who are] extremely poorly prepared for study. Furthermore, the challenge is to consolidate the transformations of tertiary education achieved through struggle, particularly to serve the broad South African community through appropriate research agendas that will sustain these advancements. Q. Lastly, what’s the best career advice you can give students studying at UWC today? A. A university career only lays the foundation for what we will be attempting as a career. To further benefit from it they need to benchmark their own progress and achievements against those alumni of UWC who have made their contributions to the South African development agenda in all major walks of life: in education, in politics, in jurisprudence, in health care, in social services, in the economy, etc. They have proved that challenges, whether politically, economically, socially and educationally, can never be justification for mediocrity and lack of commitment or resting on one’s laurels, expecting others to do it for you.
UWC’s Life Sciences Building auditorium on 14 February 2012. The Secretary’s two-day visit was aimed at furthering and deepening the UK-South African relationship and followed a successful Bilateral Forum in 2011 and visits to South Africa by British Prime Minister David Cameron, the Prince of Wales and the Lord Mayor of London.
Hague singles out UWC Britain’s Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, The Right Honourable William Hague, delivered a public lecture at
Mr Hague’s lecture, entitled ‘Britain and South Africa: A 21st Century Relationship’, was in fact his maiden speech in South Africa as Foreign Secretary, and the only public talk of his short tour. Directly addressing the students and staff in the audience, Hague explained his reason for wanting to speak at UWC: “You
represent your country’s next generation of leaders. You belong to a South Africa that is a growing force in world affairs, and that is shaping a new global role for itself. How South Africa exercises that role in the future will have a major impact not just on your region but on our world.” Mr Hague emphasised South Africa’s importance as a trading partner and the economic gateway to Africa. He stressed South Africa’s emerging role in international relations, especially its moral leadership as a country that had transformed itself into a democracy, and acknowledged the “distinguished role in that struggle” that UWC had played.