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Wits ideals and history
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Marching for academic freedom
Defending social ideals
Wits has a proud record of standing up for social justice, freedom and democracy.
Wits is a vibrant University in the heart of cosmopolitan Johannesburg. Throughout its long history the University has been synonymous with progressive thought and public engagement. Its academics and students speak up and speak out. Although the University’s history is inevitably tainted by the exclusionary policies of apartheid, Wits has a proud record of standing up for social justice, freedom and democracy.
Wits is renowned for its demonstrations in defence of human rights and freedoms, from the splendour of formal academic marches in full academic regalia, to messy skirmishes against the teargas and batons of the former “riot police”. From the time Wits defied segregation in the 1930s by permitting black students to study, through the wave of student activism in 1948 when the National Party formalised apartheid, to the hotbed of political unrest during the turbulent 1980s, the University has always been the breeding ground for bold leadership and a diversity of voices.
The University’s commitment to liberty and justice continues to this day.
Wits holds regular public discussions and debates on current social issues and has demonstrated on issues of media freedom, xenophobia, the right of the Dalai Lama to visit South Africa, and the Marikana mine massacre.
Wits milestones
1896
Wits University’s forerunner, the South African School of Mines, is established in Kimberley.
1904
The School moves to Johannesburg and is renamed the Transvaal Technical Institute.
1906
The Institute is renamed the Transvaal University College.
1922
University of the Witwatersrand established
The University is formally inaugurated on 4 October at a ceremony at the Johannesburg Town Hall and Professor Jan Hofmeyr is appointed the first Principal. Full University status is granted and the University of the Witwatersrand is established with about 1 000 students.
The Johannesburg municipality donates a site in Milner Park to the University and construction begins on what is now East Campus.
Prince Arthur of Connaught is installed as the University’s first Chancellor.
Sir William Dalrymple is elected as the first Chairperson of the Wits Council.
1923
Henry John Hofmeyr is elected the first President of Convocation.
Wits University Press established.
1925
The Central Block is officially opened by His Royal Highness, Edward, Prince of Wales. In a famous student hoax, a ‘bogus’ prince is initially presented to the crowd.
1928
Professor Humphrey Raikes is appointed Principal. His tendency to fall asleep during important meetings and even official public occasions causes alarm, but is later recognised as narcolepsy and treated.
Official opening
Fire at Central Block 1931
New library opened
1931
Central Block is gutted by fire and the library destroyed.
1934
New Library, now the William Cullen Library, is officially opened by Prince George, Duke of Kent.
The University’s Council decides to begin admitting black students to Wits.
1939
The Right Honourable Jan Hofmeyr is installed as the University’s second Chancellor.
1940
The Governor-General, Sir Patrick Duncan, officially opens the Great Hall in the newly completed Central Block.
1943
The first major Wits student protest – against increased fees – takes place.
1946
Wits launches its ‘crash’ programme for ex-volunteers returning from World War II. The University enrols 2 825 ex-volunteers, more than twice as many as all the other South African universities combined.
Dr Donald Moikangoa and Dr James Njongwe are the first black men to graduate from Medical School.
1947
‘Mrs Ples’ discovered
Dr Mary Susan Xakana (née Malahlela) is the first black woman to graduate from Medical School.
Honorary alumnus Dr Robert Broom and Professor John Robinson discover ‘Mrs Ples’ at the Sterkfontein Caves.
1948
The National Party wins the South African election, prompting student politics to begin engaging with issues of national significance. Various student organisations become more politicised and involved in the anti-apartheid movement.
1957
Two thousand academic staff, students and members of Convocation march from the University to the City Hall behind the banner ‘Against Separate Universities Bill’.
1959
On 16 April, thousands of students and staff stand in silence on campus to mourn the end of academic freedom as the National Party passes the Extension of University Education Act (a follow-up to the Bantu Education Act of 1953). Both acts exclude black students from white schools and universities.
1959
The University’s first ever General Assembly is held in the Great Hall to protest against the imposition of university apartheid.
The opening night of the African jazz opera ‘King Kong’ is staged in the Great Hall, starring Miriam Makeba and Hugh Masekela on trumpet.
1960
The University purchases the Sterkfontein site, an area with limestone caves that are famous for their fossil finds and palaeo-anthropological significance.
On 12 October the first full-sized planetarium in Africa, and the second in the Southern Hemisphere, opens its doors on Wits campus to the public.
Des and Dawn Lindberg, Free People's Concert
US Senator Robert F Kennedy
1972
Wits hosts the first Free People’s Concert on 12 March. It is a 12-hour non-racial open air event. Alumni including Johnny Clegg and Des and Dawn Lindberg perform.
1966
United States Senator Robert F. Kennedy addresses Wits students in the Great Hall.
1961 A plaque is unveiled at the Great Hall, declaring: “We affirm in the name of the University of the Witwatersrand that it is our duty to uphold the principle that a university is a place where men and women, without regard to race and colour, are welcome to join in the acquisition and advancement of knowledge; and to continue faithfully to defend this ideal against all those who have sought by legislative enactment to curtail the autonomy of the University.”
1968
1968 The Graduate School of Business Administration (Wits Business School) is established in Parktown.
1976
The University expands into Braamfontein, where it buys Lawson’s Corner and renames it University Corner.
1981
Felicity Steadman (née Wright) (BA Social Work) becomes the University’s 50 000th graduate.
1982
Wits alumnus Sir Aaron Klug wins the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
1983
The Wits Theatre opens
1984
The University purchases the old Rand Show grounds from the Witwatersrand Agricultural Society and converts the grounds into West Campus.
1988
Honorary Wits alumna Nadine Gordimer wins the Nobel Prize in Literature.
1989
The Chamber of Mines Building for the Faculty of Engineering is inaugurated and the brick-paved AMIC Deck, linking the East and West Campuses, is built.
Wits purchases the Umbabat Farm in Bushbuckridge, Limpopo Province, to launch the Wits Rural Facility, an interdisciplinary research facility to develop the local community.
1993
Wits confers an honorary doctorate on Nelson Mandela.
1997
The new South African Constitution takes effect and contains a Bill of Rights which recognises the right to academic freedom in institutions of higher learning.
Wits alumnus Professor Ron Clarke unearths an almost complete Australopithecus skeleton, now known as ‘Little Foot’.
2002
The University incorporates the Johannesburg College of Education into the School of Education.
The University’s Donald Gordon Medical Centre, South Africa’s only independent academic medical facility, is launched as a result of a R100m donation by the Donald Gordon Foundation.
2003
Professor Loyiso Nongxa is appointed as Wits’ first black Vice-Chancellor and Principal.
International House, a residence designed for the growing international student population, and the revamped student mall, The Matrix, open.
Honorary Wits alumnus Nelson Mandela wins the Nobel Peace Prize.
2007
The Wits mascot, Kudos Kudu, is introduced to inspire Witsies to greater glory.
Justice Dikgang Moseneke is installed as the eighth Chancellor of the University.
2008
Seven hundred Wits academics and staff, including the Vice-Chancellor, don their academic gowns and bear placards on Jan Smuts Avenue in protest against nationwide xenophobic attacks.
2010
A groundbreaking discovery of Australopithecus sediba fossils (one of which is named ‘Karabo’) is announced to the world by Wits palaeoanthropologist Professor Lee Berger.
Wits University serves as the training base for the Dutch football team and the South African national football team, Bafana Bafana, during the 2010 FIFA® Soccer World Cup.
The University issues a public statement condemning the South African government’s denial of a visa to His Holiness, the Dalai Lama.
Bidvest-Wits FC (aka ‘Clever Boys’/‘The Students’) make history by winning the Nedbank Cup in the first match to be held in the brand new Soccer City stadium in Johannesburg.
2011
Professor Mamokgethi Phakeng is the first black woman to be elected President of Convocation.
A new student residence complex, Wits Junction, and the Science Stadium on West Campus are opened to students.
2012
Wits celebrates its 90th birthday
Wits celebrates its 90th birthday with a party on the Library Lawns on 4 October.
Alumnus Professor Adam Habib takes office as Wits Vice-Chancellor and Principal on 1 June.
2012
Dr Randall Carolissen is elected Chairperson of the Wits Council.
2014
On 20 October, Wits announces receipt of R100m from a single benefactor. R10m is allocated to the Wits Art Museum and the remainder to advancing research and teaching.
2016
Tshimologong Digital Innovation Precinct opens in Braamfontein. It is an enabling space to develop new digital technologies.
Construction of the Nelson Mandela Children’s Hospital begins on the Wits Education Campus.
2015
Wits launches Digital Campus, an online learning platform.
2017
Southern Centre for Inequality Studies launched.
Wits launches the eZone, a place to explore eLearning.
Chancellor Dr Judy Dlamini
2018
Dr Judy Dlamini is installed as Chancellor, the first woman in the role.
Wits doctors transplant part of an HIV-positive mother’s liver into her HIVnegative child
Wits completes a Digitisation Centre to preserve resources, widen access to research and support digital learning
Campus gets a biometric access system and upgraded gateways
General Assembly
A General Assembly is a special gathering of Convocation members
The University held its first ever General Assembly in 1959 in the Great Hall to protest against the imposition of university apartheid.
On 19 October 1987 the old South African government renewed its systematic violation of the autonomy of universities. On 28 October, a Wits General Assembly affirmed that:
“The University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg is dedicated to the acquisition, advancement and imparting of knowledge through the pursuit of truth in free and open debate, in the undertaking of research, in scholarly discourse and in balanced, dispassionate teaching. We reject any external interference designed to diminish our freedom to attain these ends. We record our solemn protest against the intention of the government, through the threat of financial sanctions, to force the University to become the agent of government policy in disciplining its members. We protest against the invasion of the legitimate authority of the University. We protest against the proposed stifling of the legitimate dissent. In the interest of all in this land, and in the knowledge of the justice of our cause, we dedicate ourselves to unremitting opposition to these intended restraints and to the restoration of our autonomy.”
“
Wits belongs to all of us: Black and White, Muslim or Jewish, Christian or Hindu, gay or straight.
2005
A special General Assembly and graduation ceremony was held to enable alumni who had boycotted their graduation ceremony in protest against apartheid education to reclaim ownership of their alma mater, and be formally awarded their qualification.
In honour of the ceremony, the Vice-Chancellor and Principal, Professor Loyiso Nongxa, made a landmark proclamation, stating:
“We can never claim that this country is completely liberated if there are places that are not ours, that are perceived to belong to the ‘other’. Wits is your University, it is our University as South Africans. Wits belongs to all of us: Black and White, Muslim or Jewish, Christian or Hindu, gay or straight.”
1969
Tenth anniversary of the 1959 declaration of the University’s commitment to remaining free and open
1972
The University’s statement on the Minister of Justice’s prohibition of all protest meetings in South Africa
1975
Protest against the detention of students without trial
1983
The objection to the Universities Amendment Bill, which gave the Minister power to impose racial quotas on universities
1985
Commitment to the University’s academic principles and the right and freedom of the University to decide who may teach and who may be admitted to study
1986
Declaration against the State of Emergency and the detention without trial of students and staff
1987
Violation of the institutional autonomy of universities and the restriction of subsidies
1992
Call to government to curb violence, combat poverty and call for a peaceful transition to democracy
2001
The launch of Wits’ AIDS policy and commitment to fighting the epidemic
