Statement: A political stalwart in her own right, Mama Winnie Madikizela-Mandela gave of herself in the fight for gender equity and social justice.
The University of the Witwatersrand expresses its deepest condolences to the family and friends of Mama Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, who passed away in Johannesburg this afternoon at the age of 81 after a long illness.
An activist and a leader at the forefront of the struggle for freedom, Mama Madikizela-Mandela did not hesitate to speak her mind, and to sacrifice her personal freedoms and her family, in the quest for the freedom and liberation of South Africans from Apartheid.
A political stalwart in her own right, Mama Madikizela-Mandela gave of herself in the fight for gender equity and social justice. She always made time to listen to young students and spent many hours offering them inspiration and hope over the years.
Mama Madikizela-Mandela was an alumna of the University of the Witwatersrand and the flag above the Wits Great Hall will fly at half-mast in honour of her memory on Tuesday, 3 April 2018.Various Wits constituencies will host events in memory of Mama Madikizela-Mandela in the coming days.
Hamba kahle Mama Madikizela-Mandela - Rest In Peace.
JSE listing for Wits developed Funds
- Wits University
Wits made history when two Exchange Traded Funds developed at the University were launched on the JSE.
These products are a result of multi-year collaboration between Wits and Absa and essentially offer an inexpensive rules-based risk-factor strategy to investors, allowing them to better manage their risk. The tools also create the ability to outperform a market index without resorting to active stock picking.
The Absa Wits NewFunds products were developed by a research team of the Wits Finance Division (which is located in the School of Economics and Business Sciences) of James Britten, Daniel Page and David McClelland, led by Professor Christo Auret. This team of Finance academics has published internationally on factor-based investment approaches and solutions.
The launch of the Equity Premia range ETFs is an exciting development in the investment area. The Wits team is continuously exploring and evaluating other factors and sees this as an important evolving area of research. Dean of the CLM Faculty, Professor Imraan Valodia said “This is a great example of how the University’s expertise in finance research is contributing to innovation in financial markets and improving the quality of these instruments.”
Wits Press book on Sol Plaatje and the land issue scoops the Non-fiction Edited Volume category at the 2018 HSS awards.
Sol Plaatje’s Native Life in South Africa: Past and Present (Wits University Press 2016) has won the Non-fiction Edited Volume category at the annual National Institute of Humanities & Social Sciences (NIHSS) Awards ceremony. The prize was awarded at a sparkling event at the Market Theatre in March. It won the award jointly with Hanging on a Wire, a book on the photography of Sophie Klaase (Fourthwall).
The HSS Awards recognise and celebrate outstanding, innovative and socially responsive works in the humanities and social sciences that enhance and advance post-apartheid and post-colonial forms of scholarship through creative and digital productions. The awards are open to all academics, curators and artists who are based at participating South African universities.
The judges’ citation on the winning book was as follows: “This collection focusses on a substantive and uniquely South African text. The essays and creative contributions are well written and illuminating and their significance is enhanced by the innovative use of photographs, poems, a travel diary and other creative components”.
On receiving the award Bhekizizwe Peterson, one of the book’s editors, gave a moving vote of thanks, referencing the continuing relevance of Plaatje’s contribution on the land issue, and dedicated the award to Plaatje.
This multi-authored book, edited by Janet Remmington, Brian Willan and Bheki Peterson, is a collection of poems, provocations, photos, stories and academic essays that aim to shed new light on how and why Plaatje’s Native Life came into being at a critical historical juncture, and reflects on how it can be read in relation to South Africa’s heightened challenges today.
First published in 1916, Sol Plaatje’s Native Life in South Africa was written by one of South Africa’s most talented early 20th-century black leaders and journalists. Plaatje’s pioneering book arose out of an early African National Congress campaign to protest against the discriminatory 1913 Natives Land Act.
Commenting on the book winning this prestigious award, Wits University Press publisher, Veronica Klipp, said that the award recognises the continued relevance of Plaatje’s work on the land debate as well as the careful conceptualization of the volume by the books’ editors. She thanked the NIHSS for their ongoing support and promotion of publishing in the humanities and social sciences.
Sol Plaatje’s Native Life in South Africa: Past and Present is available from Wits University Press, www.witspress.co.za and from all good bookshops.
Wits celebrates its rated researchers
- Wits University
The Wits Research Office has recognised scholars at the University whom the National Research Foundation (NRF) has rated or re-rated.
Political Studies Professor Lawrence Hamilton, who is the NRF/British Academy Bilateral Research Chair in Political Theory at Wits and Cambridge University received an A-rating
NRF A-rated researchers are those scholars recognised by their peers internationally as global leaders in their field. Wits now boasts 28 A-rated researchers.
Additionally, the NRF awarded 39 Wits researchers with B, C, or Y ratings as follows:
Three Wits researchers received B-ratings, denoting they are internationally acclaimed
24 Wits researchers received C-ratings, indicating they are established researchers
12 Wits researchers received Y-ratings as promising young researchers.
The Innovation Excellence Award acknowledges a researcher whose work has impact in that it changes a field of research and becomes a commercial innovation. Professor Luke Chimuka in the School of Chemistry received this award for a method he developed to produce an extract from the Moringa plant through pressurised hot water extraction. The result was the production of sophisticated food and supplement products for consumers, now sold as yoghurt in Wits canteens.
Microbiologist Professor Lynn Morris and Paleoanthropologist, Professor Lee Berger were recognised for being the most highly cited scholars in the world. Highly Cited Researchers is an annual list compiled by Clarivate Analytics that recognises leading researchers in the sciences and social sciences globally.
The most highly cited researchers per faculty were:
Professor Jason Cohen and Dr J Peters in the Faculty Commerce, Law and Management
Professor Kevin Harding and (formerly) Dr Aggrey Mwesigye in the Faculty Engineering and the Built Environment
Professor Neil Covill, Director: Postgraduate Affairs pointed out that Wits has some 12 000 postgraduates students, all of whom require supervision. Coville recognised the top postgraduate supervisors in faculty:
Speaking at the ceremony, Professor Tawana Kupe, Acting Vice-Chancellor, said:
“Research at Wits is alive and well. In the last eight years, our annual output has doubled. The average annual growth is 10% since 2009 and in 2016 – a stellar year – our growth was 18%. And just in case you felt it was a numbers game only, this growth has been achieved without a drop in quality. Indeed, quality is rising too. According to the Web of Science, Wits’ research is, on average, 30% better than the world average. Furthermore, we have consistently had two or more scholars in the top 1% of global scholars by citations. All of this is only possible because of the talented people that contribute to Wits.”
‘Aluta continua’ for economic freedom
- Wits University
The struggle for economic freedom in South Africa continues, says American Civil Rights leader, Reverend Jesse Jackson.
Jackson, one of of America’s foremost civil rights, religious and political figures says that while Africans have acquired political freedom, they now need economic freedom through access to capital.
Known as the “Conscience of the Nation” and “the Great Unifier” in the US, Jackson was invited by the African Centre for the Study of the United States at Wits University to deliver a talk in the Great Hall on Monday, 16 April 2018.
His talk, titled Looking at the similarities of civil rights matters in America and South Africa - then and now, highlighted parallels between South Africa and the United States of America. Both countries have the same history of racial segregation and prejudice – for the US it being slavery and for SA apartheid.
“Our struggles are parallel. We were enslaved during the same period. We were segregated during the same time.”
Although both the US and South Africa won the battle against slavery and apartheid, today we still face an economic struggle, said Jackson.
“We have ended apartheid and slavery but we do not have access to capital. Africans need land reform today. Today we are free, we can vote, we have our president and our politicians but today we are not equal.”
While many South Africans will commemorate Freedom Day on 27 April 2018, freedom is still not enjoyed equally in the country. Despite 24 years of democracy in the country, economic inequality still persists.
“Our struggle was not to be free alone, our struggle was to be free to be equal. Freedom was not our goal. Freedom was the need we had to acquire to fight for equality. Today we are free but not equal. Today, black South Africans do not control banks, mass media, insurance, pensions, ships, international trade, construction, agriculture, engineering, technology, science,” said Jackson.
Receiving great applause from the audience in the nearly packed Great Hall, he further added that “today blacks are ‘freer-er’ and whites are richer”, stressing the unequal distribution of wealth in the country.
The founder and president of the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, has over the past 40 years played a pivotal role in virtually every movement for empowerment, peace, civil rights, gender equality, and economic and social justice.
Jackson has been delivering talks on equality and human rights in Johannesburg during his visit to the country. He came to bid farewell to struggle veteran, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela and paid tribute to the political activist in his talk. He hailed Mama Winnie for the role she played in fighting apartheid, describing her as the light that shone during the dark political upheavals of the country.
“The light in darkness was Winnie. We must forever appreciate the role that she played,” he said.
