Proverb: We do not inherit the Earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children.
Dr Morné du Plessis, Chief Executive of WWF South Africa, used this well-known proverb to remind graduands from the Faculty of Science that “planet Earth is worth protecting”.
Speaking during the graduation ceremony today, 23 March 2016, Du Plessis said that instead of borrowing Earth from our children, we have now realised that we have been stealing it from them.
“We have not been good stewards of our only planet. We are making excessive demands on the natural world and Earth’s ecosystems are under extreme pressure. The way we meet our needs today is compromising the ability of future generations, you and your children, to meet theirs – the very objective of sustainability,” said Du Plessis, a former director of the FitzPatrick Institute at the University of Cape Town – one of only six national Centres of Excellence in South Africa.
“Our very existence depends on healthy ecosystems and the solaces that they provide from clean water to air to liveable climates to food to fuel to fibre to fertile soil. The concept of sustainability is not some far-fetched ideal of a narrow interest group – it is an instinctive truth that presides in every culture in the world.”
About Dr Morné du Plessis:
Du Plessis has presented keynote lectures and scientific presentations at a wide range of local and international conferences, and authored or co-authored over 50 scientific publications in the fields of conservation biology and environmental science.
He was awarded the South African National Research Foundation’s President’s Award in 1996. In 2000, he was listed among the Mail & Guardian’s “Most Promising 100 Young South Africans in the New Millennium”.
Du Plessis holds degrees in Agriculture and Zoology from Stellenbosch and Pretoria Universities, an Executive MBA from the Graduate School of Business (Cape Town), and a PhD in Zoology from the University of Cape Town.
Never, ever stop exploring
- Wits University
Lee Berger tells Science graduands that many more discoveries are out there waiting to be made.
The award-winning researcher, explorer, author and speaker addressed graduands in the Faculty of Science today, 23 March 2015, during the March Graduation Cluster.
“As young scientists, expect new discoveries. Be positive,” Berger said as he relayed how his explorations the past two decades have led, among others, to the discovery of two new species of early human relatives: Australopithecus sediba and Homo naledi.
These are among his extraordinary body of work that has featured three times on the cover of prestigious journal, Science, and that have been named among the top 100 science stories of the year by Time, Scientific American and Discover Magazine on numerous occasions.
“You can build your own empires but it takes hard work. Never stop learning. Ever. You cannot have too much education. You cannot have too many degrees. Learn wherever possible, it is the only thing you will ever own that will always be valuable,” he said.
About Professor Lee Berger:
Berger is the Research Professor in Human Evolution and the Public Understanding of Science, and the Division Director of Palaeoanthropology in the Evolutionary Studies Institute at Wits. His contributions to exploration sciences have also resulted in advances in the field of applied exploration methods and the application of technology to exploration, excavation and discovery.
He is also the author of more than two hundred scholarly and popular works including more than 100 refereed papers and a number of academic and popular books on palaeontology, natural history, and exploration.
This is where you will always belong
- Wits University
Andrew Forbes reminded graduands that their future success is also the success of the University.
The Distinguished Professor in the School of Physics addressed the Faculty of Science graduation ceremony in the Great Hall today, 23 March 2016. He told graduands that while they are graduating from this University, you can never leave Wits.
“Our success and your success are now entangled, intertwined. People judging you in the future and looking at what you have achieved, will be looking at us (the University) too. Everything we do will reflect on your status because this is where you come from and this is where you will always belong,” he said.
In congratulating the graduands, Forbes reminded them that greatness comes from within and is not dependent on one’s external environment. “Try to be brilliant at something. And try not to follow the crowd and to worry about the environment you find yourself in,” he added.
About Professor Andrew Forbes:
A former Chief Researcher and Research Group Leader of Mathematical Optics at the CSIR National Laser Centre, Forbes joined Wits in 2015 as part of the University’s Distinguished Professor programme. He has since established a new Structured Light Lab in the School of Physics.
He is active in promoting photonics in South Africa and is a founding member of the Photonics Initiative of South Africa, a Fellow of SPIE, and a member of the Academy of Science of South Africa.
Brian Joffe receives honorary doctorate from Wits
- Wits University
Bidvest CEO and founder honoured for his contribution to business and society in South Africa.
Bidvest CEO and founder of the JSE-listed Bidvest Group today received an honorary doctorate degree from his alma-mater, Wits University.
Joffe, who graduated from Wits University as a chartered accountant in 1971, received his degree from Wits University Chancellor, Justice Dikgang Moseneke, at the graduation ceremony for the Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management today (Wednesday, 29 March).
Joffe, who started the Bidvest Group from somewhat humble beginnings, into being one of the leading corporations in South Africa, with a turnover of over R204 billion, employing more than 145 000 people, of which over 125 000 are in South Africa, launched his entrepreneurial career in 1978 when he borrowed R49 000 to buy an interest in a small pet food manufacturer.
A year later, he borrowed again, to acquire full ownership and to expand the company. Within six months his business – using largely discarded machinery on a makeshift production line – held 15% of South Africa’s canned dog food market. He subsequently sold this business to a major industrial group.
Joffe launched Bidvest in 1989 and built it to be the company it is today. He looked beyond apartheid to a democratic future in which South Africa would again be integrated into the global economy. He bought businesses that others were eager to sell, consistently expressing his faith in South Africa’s ability to transform and grow. In the process, he developed a uniquely empowered business model driven by autonomous entrepreneurs, each responsible for growing their own operations.
Following acquisition by Bidvest, under-performing operations were often transformed into industry leaders. Countless jobs were saved and the basis established for a diversified group. Joffe also looked beyond the received wisdom of focussing on ‘core strengths’. Instead, he built a diversified company with interests in sectors as spread out as food services, travel services and pharmaceuticals. Rather than focussing on one market, Joffe built his company on consolidating diverse markets.
Joffe sought also to build a strategically diversified company by building an international set of activities. The first international acquisition occurred in 1995 when Manettas Australia (now Bidvest Australia) was acquired. The business had hit hard times and needed a substantial capital injection. Today, the business is Australia’s leading national foodservice supplier.
The business he leads makes a sustained contribution to communities and worthy causes, locally and in all markets where its subsidiaries are active. It is estimated that over the past decade, Bidvest’s social investment has topped R540 million. The contribution of the Johannesburg Corporate office alone tops R120 million. Corporate projects include: Reach For A Dream, QuadPara (to develop the potential of quadriplegics and paraplegics), Sagda (graduate development), Hear For Life, the Chefs Association, Wits University, Hospice, Bethany House, the Nkosi Haven, ORT SA and PinkDrive.
Addressing the grandaunts at the graduation ceremony, Joffe inspired them to strive to make South Africa a better place for their children and grandchildren.
“We need to create South Africa for tomorrow – every one of us. And, if we manage to do that, we would be able to come back and stand up here. And, instead of you listening to me talk, you can do the talking, and tell everybody what you’ve done over the last 45 years,” he said.
The question is not where but what?
- Wits University
It is harder to resist this (moral) slippage than to go along with it.
Anti-competitive behaviour by companies that undermined the laws of the country and more recently, state capture, have made headlines after it emerged that politically connected businesses had tried to unduly influence political and national decisions.
This behaviour thrives and persists because individuals do not act when they are co-opted into illegal activities, said Norman Manoim, Chairperson of the Competition Tribunal.
Manoim was speaking to graduands about the moral challenges that await them in the workplace as they carve out their careers.
He warned that “straying from one’s moral compass is not always an observable event. For the most part it happens without the devil emailing us a calendar reminder saying moral slippage starts at 2pm today in the boardroom.”
“It is insidious but inconspicuous. We just find that we fit into a corporate culture where we are doing that very thing that maybe 10 years back – when we sat in our gowns in the graduation hall – we never thought we would do.”
Citing the bread cartel that affected many poor households and other cases, Manoim sought to instil moral consciousness in the graduands who, on their way to success, might be placed in precarious positions.
A reoccurring question posed by Manoim during his address to graduands is whether they will be who they say they are today.
“You are today hopefully a person who is ambitious, idealistic and wants to change the world into a better place than it was when your career started.
“In 10 years’ time - will you still be that person?”
About Manoim
Norman Manoim is the Chairperson of the Competition Tribunal. He has served as a full-time member of the Competition Tribunal since its inception in September 1999 and was part of the team that drafted the present South African Competition Act.
He has a history in activism and student politics having once occupied key positions including Wits SRC president (1979 – 80), vice–president of the National Union of South African Students, and president of the South African Students’ Press Union. He was active in several anti-apartheid structures and key institutions post democracy.
The future lies in your hands
- Wits University
Various tools measuring the status of South African households show a steady increase in the education levels of the country.
The education levels of the South African population, although gradually increasing, are still at low levels thus placing a big responsibility on those with degrees.
Economist, Professor Dori Posel, sketched out these figure to graduands at the morning graduation ceremony of the Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management.
Quoting the 2001 Population Census, Posel said only about 8% of the adult population aged 20 years and older had completed post-secondary education. “In 2011 this had increased to 12% and according to a recently released Household Survey this had increased substantially.”
Posel appealed to the class of 2015, who had the privilege to attain a higher education qualification, to use their knowledge to steer the country forward.
“In 10 to 20 years, many of the people you see on this stage or in business or non-government offices would have resigned and you will have these positions. South Africa still has a very long road to travel to reduce inequality and poverty; build the economy and employment; further improve access to quality education and health care; increase accountability; and improve social redress generally.”
“The future lies in your hands. You will need to play a significant role in making this happen.”
Some 360 Witsies graduated in the Faculty and are part of a total of 4 600 students graduating during the University’s March/April graduation cluster. More graduations will be held in June/July and in December this year
About Posel:
Professor Dori Posel is an economist who specialises in applied micro-economic research, which explores the interface between households and labour markets in South Africa. She recently joined Wits to take up the Helen Suzman Chair in Political Economics.
Prior to that Posel held an NRF/DST South African Research Chair in Economic Development at the University of KwaZulu-Natal.
She obtained her PhD in Economics from the University of Massachusetts in the US in 1999. She served as a postdoctoral fellow at Princeton University, US, in 2000.
Posel received the NRF President’s award in 2001, the UKZN Vice-Chancellor’s Research Award in 2005, and a B-rating from the NRF in 2012. She has published widely on issues related to marriage and family formation, labour force participation, labour migration, the economics of language, and measures of well-being.
Makgoba's challenge to Witsies, SA
- Kemantha Govender
The Archbishop of Cape Town, Thabo Makgoba, says South Africa has a new struggle that he wants people to join.
Makgoba, has called for Wits graduands and all South Africans to join the country’s latest struggle – the struggle to establish a new and more equal society.
Speaking after receiving an honorary doctorate from Wits University, Makgoba said we all should strive for a society of equal opportunity in which the wealth that comes from new economic growth is shared equitably among all.
Tell the truth
“The new struggle repudiates the values which underpinned colonialism and apartheid: narrow self-interest, callous selfishness and the pursuit of personal gain, of power, status, and material wealth, regardless of the consequences for other people or our planet,” said Makgoba.
The Archbishop called for a “tsunami of truth-telling” about corrupt influence-peddling on government by business interests. He was responding to the Constitutional Court judgement on Nkandla.
“We live in a society based on fear. Our members of are too scared to hold the executive properly to account. Those in the executive or in public service who is alleged to have been approached by a well-known family – and who have allegedly been offered blandishments in return for business favours – have been too afraid to speak out about it.
"Thankfully, the courage of a few is breaking down the fear, hopefully unleashing a wave of truth-telling about corrupt influence-peddling, not only by one family but by other business interests too," he said.
Makgoba said he hopes that Thursday’s Constitutional Court judgement finding that both President Jacob Zuma – in challenging the Public Protector's findings on Nkandla – and Parliament – in seeking to protect the president – acted unlawfully, will give public servants and others new courage to speak out – and generate not just a wave but a tsunami of truth-telling.
Continue your education
Makgoba also reminded students that they must never think that their education has come to an end, and they should never think that education simply means the acquisition of knowledge.
“Education is far more than the accumulation and communication of information, of facts and figures, practices and procedures. For me, the definition of true education which resonates best is that it is about the development of wisdom.
“Exercising wisdom calls us to a practical understanding of the world and people about us, and to a shrewd discernment of situations and how to handle them. Wisdom enables us to play a constructive role in society; to respond to the challenges of our times so that we are not part of the problem, but rather part of the solution,” he said.
Makgoba said it is important for the graduands to understand the power and importance of trust.
“If you are true to yourself, and to others, you will be a person who is trusted by others. As they say, remember that there is a high cost to low trust and a high value to high trust. So never do anything that will cause someone to lose their trust in you.”
Wits honours student inspires graduands
- Kemantha Govender
Successful people fail, they fail many times and they fail quickly, says Doug Anderson, speaker at a Humanities graduation ceremony on 31 March 2016.
Anderson, who received the National Order of the Baobab: Silver, from President Jacob Zuma for his work in promoting the rights of people with disabilities and orphans in 2015, was born with a spinal defect leaving him partially paraplegic from birth.
His address, which received a standing ovation, was filled with personal stories of wisdom and encouragement.
Against the odds
Anderson’s quirky sense of humour came out when he referred to himself as a “two percenter”, the odds given to him of surviving at birth. He told the graduands that he chose to “never be limited by the limitations in the minds of others”.
Doctors also told him that he would not be able to talk or be educated. But not only is Anderson a radio producer and presenter, he is also a journalism honours student at Wits.
Anderson has worked in radio since 2004, cutting his teeth at a community radio station, Radio Today, and in 2007 he joined Radio 2000. He was also a special contributor for television during the last couple of Paralympics. But it was a difficult journey.
Rejection and hope
“You would think that after being head boy, after representing my province and country in sports, after achieving in academia that this would have counted for something in the world, but the reality of the situation for me (at least at the time) it didn’t.
“I studied a number of things at various institutions. I had rejection after rejection trying to get a job,” said Anderson.
At school, he represented his province and country in sports, amassing 39 gold, 16 silver and five bronze medals. Anderson also excelled in leadership by serving as a head boy in 1996 at the Hope School in Johannesburg.
He said people with disabilities are often restricted to working in callcentres or as switchboard operators. Anderson said that despite being told his disability is a hindrance to employment, he persevered until he found something that he loved.
Awards
Anderson is also a qualified reflexologist, and also started various businesses during his career.
He is passionate about making a difference in the world, particularly when it comes to people with disabilities. Anderson has won numerous awards for his work with the disabled. He received the Inseta Disability Champion award two years running, the Disability International Community Role Model award, and the Hamlet Presidents Award for work in the field of intellectual disability.
“You can’t always control what happens to us but you can control the way you react to what happens to us. Learn to embrace change or it will embrace you. The trick to success is to get up, dress up, show up and never give up,” said Anderson.
Anderson has had 42 surgeries in 38 years. He says the biggest lesson he learnt, came with operation number 40 in 2013.
“A simple 40 minute procedure that went horribly wrong and left me in ICU for a month, sedated and ventilated for 10 days with two super bugs. Nearly dying, gives you a different appreciation of life. I say live more, love more, do more, be more and (the) sincerity in your intentions determine success in your life,” he said.
Bring in the Jazz
- Wits University
Vuyo Jack, founder of Empowerdex, says SA needs a new breed of leadership.
South Africa needs a new kind of leadership to deal with its unique problems and challenges in an increasingly changing world, and that type of leadership is called "Jazz leadership".
This is the view of Mr. Vuyo Jack, founder of Empowerdex, who addressed the 2016 graduants from the Wits Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management on Tuesday, 29 March.
Jack, a keen jazz enthusiast, said that South African society as a whole – including politics, the economy and education – needed what he termed “jazz leadership” to take the country forward.
“We need to be able to see new ideologies that talk to us; that talks to our present moment. We should not be constrained in socialism, communism or capitalism, but we need to come up with something that is new and that talks to us.”
Jack defined jazz leadership as a leadership style that is comfortable, and flexible, in all contexts. It allows individuals to rise and be heard, yet it is creative and have enough “clarity and sense of time and rhythm to return to the normal form”.
This is in contrary to the strict, instructive and fragile “classical leadership” style from the classical music world, and the spirited but destructive “struggle leadership” style gained from the world of struggle music.
“Jazz leadership is needed in the economy. We are not going to survive if we are going to do BEE if we do not create something. What are we going to redistribute? We need to create something before we can be able to redistribute it. So we need to create new jobs, and the new jobs are going to come from new ideas,” he said.
“Jazz leadership is needed across society, where everybody takes responsibility to create something out of nothing, rather than have entitlement for things they did not work for.”
Jack said there was a shared common weakness in all the “#MustFall” movements around the world, like BarackMustFall , GhadafiMustFall and, closer to home, RhodesMustFall and FeesMustFall.
“These are great and laudable initiatives, but what are going to rise in their place that then defines us?” he asked.
“(You speak about) FeesMustfall, but what must rise to ensure that we produce students of the highest calibre that can compete anywhere in the world, produced by universities that have world class infrastructure and relevant curriculum that talks to their Afrocentric identity and reality – taught by top academics that produce practical and ground-breaking research, and who apply the most innovative teaching methods that generate high graduation rates?
“A common weakness that runs through all these movements is that there is no balance between what falls, and what is created. It is a lack of creativity of what we must build from the things that must fall. The reality of the matter is that it is easier to destroy than to build something from nothing.”
A personal GPS on the path to significance
- Wits University
Isaac Shongwe's life lessons guides students to reaching beyond success.
There are four principles that you should stick to in life that would lead you to beyond success, into “significance”.
These principles, according to Isaac Shongwe, former Executive Director and Board member of Barloworld Ltd, and founder of the Letsema Consulting Company, are: Self reflection, balance, true self confidence and humility.
“First of all, be humble. Arrogance will keep you from being significant,” he said. “People who are significant are people who reach beyond success, like former President Nelson Mandela.”
Shongwe addressed graduands of the Wits Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management on Tuesday, 29 March. He said these four principles were his “personal GPS” throughout life.
You must have the ability to reflect on what you stand for, and strive for greater awareness; you must have the ability to view situations from mulitiple perceptions and appreciate different viewpoints and you must be able to accept yourself for who you are – even though there will always be someone more gifted and more successful than you; and never forget who you are and where you came from.
“Value and treat each person with respect,” he said.
Shongwe grew up in Alexandra, and, along with a number of his cousins was brought up by his grandmother. He left the house when he was 12-years-old to fend for himself. He said, however, that your circumstances of birth should not determine where you end up in life, but that one should always stay true to who you really are.
“It is very important to know yourself. It sounds simple, but it is very hard to do,” he said.
Heywood gives graduates food for thought
- Kemantha Govender
Mark Heywood, one of South Africa’s most prominent social rights activists, posed important questions to graduates from the Faculty of Humanities.
“What are the moral and social responsibilities that fall on you as humanities graduates? As the authors of movements (#FeesMustFall/#RhodesMustFall) what are the responsibilities of this generation as individuals and as a generation going into the future?” He said he does not have the answers but wanted the recent graduates to think about these questions.
During his address Heywood said that humanities play a significant role in knowledge production.
“I hope that your views on humanities – on what constitutes good, morality or immorality – that you have held two or three years ago, have evolved and developed after your exposure and experiences (at Wits),” said Heywood.
He said the #FeesMustFall and #RhodesMustFall activists put equality of access to education on the national agenda but this also has far-reaching and meaningful contributions to the non-racialism and equality in South Africa. He said that it is important to him because he works for an organisation which is named after a section in the Constitution that is trying to advance the right to basic education.
“We don’t do much work in tertiary education but we are trying to turn the words of the Constitution into a reality.” SECTION27 is a public interest law centre that seeks to achieve substantive equality and social justice in South Africa.
Heywood said the starting point is to recognise that we are living in a society that is rich in resources but our behaviour when it comes to corruption for example is no longer politically or economically sustainable.
But he is hopeful that we can get it right. Referring to the recent superhero movie, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, he said we should take heed of Batman’s call to take a stand and fight for justice together.
Heywood joined the AIDS Law Project in 1994 and in 1998 he was one of the founders of the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC).
He has continued to participate on the TAC Secretariat, National Council and Board of Directors. Heywood was elected and served as the deputy chairperson of the South African National AIDS Council in 2007 until 2012.
In 2009, he was also appointed as a member of the Ministerial Advisory Committee on National Health Insurance.
Heywood has written extensively on HIV, human rights and the law and has been part of the legal teams of the ALP, TAC and SECTION27 that have been involved in major litigation around HIV and other human rights issues in South Africa.
SECTION27 has recently been involved in litigation in the Supreme Court of Appeal to challenge the Department of Education’s appeal on the provision of textbooks in Limpopo.
Black lines and blank spaces
- Wits University
Professor Anton Harber advised graduands of the Faculty of Humanities to choose their friends, battles, and enemies wisely.
When the Rand Daily Mail, where Professor Anton Harber used to work as a political reporter, got closed down by the Apartheid government in 1985, he and a colleague decided to start their own newspaper.
They had to jump through more than just the proverbial hoop to get their new paper off the ground, and, of course, everybody said that they were mad, but the Weekly Mail (Now the Mail and Guardian), turned out to be the most critical voice against the government and State censorship at the time.
It wasn’t long before the Security Police set their sights on the Weekly Mail and confiscated the whole printing run of the publication. Harber and his colleagues were devastated. They thought they were broken, that their paper was going down the drain.
But the next week, they told their journalists to cover the news as it should be. To go out, and not feel restrained by any censorship laws, and just write the news as it happened.
“The journalists did that with great eagerness,” Harber says. “But when the lawyers arrived, they put their red pens through every second word or line. Whole pictures and stories (were scrapped). Headlines, captions (were crossed out). They just said ‘you can’t use this’, ‘you can’t say this’, ‘you can’t shot that’.”
Harber and his colleagues knew that they were in trouble, as they hardly had a newspaper to print.
But they then decided to turn the problem into a solution.
“We took a thick black pen, and drew a line through every word, phrase, sentence or story that the lawyers said would be problematic.”
The newspaper was printed with black lines crossing out whole sections. Pictures that were illegal were removed completely.
“It was bold. It was daring, and it was risky,” Harber says. “We were absolutely certain, when we went to bed that night, that it would be the last newspaper that we would ever produce because it was just too cheeky and provocative.”
But when the Security Police arrived the next morning, they looked at the paper and noted that we had appeared to have complied with the law.
“What they didn’t realise, was that what we have created, with those massive black lines and blank spaces, was the most graphic and powerful representation of censorship. It displayed for all the world to see, how much has been hidden from them.”
That edition of the Weekly Mail featured on the front pages of various newspapers around the world. It became a collector’s item, and the next day, newspaper vendors were selling it at R50 a copy.
Harber told this story to inspire the graduands of the Wits Faculty of Humanities on Monday, 4 July, to be brave, break out of the norm, and “get out of the pack”, in their careers.
“You can turn tough situations into opportunities to exercise and celebrate your freedom,” he said. “Always ask the tough questions – even of yourself – and be sceptical of the answers you get. Find your boldness, with passion, creativity, and imagination. Choose your battles carefully. Choose your friends even more carefully, but most of all, make a careful choice of the right enemies.”
Legendary photographer awarded Honorary Doctorate
- Wits University
Santu Mofokeng documented life in South Africa and the struggle against Apartheid.
Legendary South African documentary photographer Santu Mofokeng was honoured with an Honorary Doctorate from Wits University on Monday, 4 July.
Mofokeng, 60, was born in Soweto and began his career as a street photographer before gaining employment as an assistant in a darkroom. While working as a darkroom assistant, he started documenting events taking place in South Africa. In 1985 he joined the Afrapix Collective and started shooting pictures of the anti-apartheid struggle.
Two years later, in 1987 he was appointed at the New Nation newspaper. From 1988 to 1998 he worked as a documentary photographer and researcher for the African Studies Institute’s Oral History Project, at the University of the Witwatersrand, and focused on producing images representing the lives of people in their homes and other aspects of daily life.
His first solo exhibition, Like Shifting Sand, for which he received an AA Vita Award Nomination, took place in 1990 at the Market Theatre Galleries in Johannesburg. This was followed in 1991 by the Ernest Cole Scholarship to study at the International Center of Photography in New York, USA, the world’s leading institution dedicated to the study of photography.
While working at Afrapix in 1992 he received the 1st Mother Jones Award for Africa – a grant made to outstanding world photographers covering social issues. The award marked the beginning of international recognition and critical acclaim for Mofokeng’s work.
In 1997 he exhibited the Chasing Shadows body of work at the Gertrude Posel Gallery, University of the Witwatersrand, and was subsequently short-listed for the FNB Vita Award for the Visual Arts.
Further international recognition followed in 1998 with the Künstlerhaus Worpswede Fellowship in Germany. The ground-breaking The Black Photo Album/Look at Me body of work was exhibited in Rotterdam, Holland, in the same year and then again in Paris, France, in 1999.
Further recognition followed in 1999 when he was awarded the Contre Jour Residency, in Marseille, France. Two DAAD Fellowships, one in Worpswede and the other in Berlin were awarded to Mofokeng in 1999 and 2001 respectively.
In 2007 he received the Ruth First Fellowship. While recognition on an international stage continued it was not until the Invoice exhibition at the Standard Bank Gallery, Johannesburg, in 2007, that a wider South African audience became more familiar with his work. In 2009 he was awarded a Laureate by the Prince Claus Fund, Netherlands.
His first international retrospective, Chasing Shadows/Santu Mofokeng, thirty years of photographic essays, took place at the Jeu de Paume Gallery in Paris, France in 2011. In March 2016, Mofokeng was awarded the International Photography Prize 2016.
In addition to 25 one person shows between 1990 and 2016, Mofokeng has exhibited on numerous group shows across the world, including Documenta 11 in Kassel, Germany and the 25th Sao Paulo Biennial, Brazil, in 2002, and the Venice Biennial in 2007 and 2013. His work has featured at further biennials and exhibitions in many countries including South Korea, the United Arab Emirates, Taiwan and China.
The most sacred currency: Life
- Wits University
Professor Glenda Gray tells Health Sciences graduates that medical history can be made in South Africa by doctors at Wits.
Gray is President of the South African Medical Research Council. She is a Wits alumna and a Professor of Paediatrics at the University. As a children’s doctor and a scientist she has pioneered research into the treatment of HIV treatment over 30 years, particularly in mother-to-child transmission.
“When I first started treating children in South Africa with ARVs, I saw them go to school, get a Matric and go to university and get degrees. And that’s why I’m so proud to be a doctor in South Africa. You’re doing something in the most sacred currency: Life.”
When Gray graduated from Wits Medical School in 1986, she had heard of this new disease: “The ‘slim disease’ they called it, but HIV was theoretical,” she recalls. “It was only in 1988 that I came face to face with HIV.”
This face was that of a white male who was a formidable, brilliant surgeon. “He was the first person I met who was HIV positive. He died a year after I left the ICU at Baragwanath Hospital, in 1989 – seven years before drugs became available,” says Gray.
In the 1990s the HIV war-zone changed focus, to children at Baragwanath Hospital where Gray worked. She co-founded and led the Perinatal HIV Research Unit at the hospital and began researching treatment as well as practicing as a doctor.
“Faced with HIV infection with infants, I designed a study to prevent mother-to-child transmission through breast feeding,” she says.
The research was controversial but ground-breaking and it demonstrated that early initiation of treatment reduced infection in infants. “It led to women being able to make an informed choice about either breast-feeding or opting for forumula. It changed behaviour,” says Gray.
Gray began studying vaccines for HIV in the mid-2000s. She wants a vaccine developed by African scientists in Africa and she hopes it comes out of Wits. “The clinical development of an HIV vaccine remains my dream,” she says.
“Our Medical School is one of the greatest on the continent – a trailblazer,” she says, adding that the first black female doctor, Mary Susan Malahlela, graduated from Wits 70 years ago.
“Education is the strongest weapon with which to change the world’,” says Gray, quoting Nelson Mandela. “From Wits you are very well equipped with that education.”
Gray concedes that the spectrum of disease today differs from when she graduated. However, the burden of disease remains huge and unequal.
“We need new minds and new innovations to address the collision of communicable and non-communicable diseases. We need to find solutions locally that can have global impact,” she says. “You will deal with people who will die. You will diagnose promising young people with cancer, but you will also breathe life into people and give them treatment so that they can return to their families.”
Gray spoke at the graduation ceremony for the Faculty of Health Sciences on 5 July 2016.
Wits honours frog lover
- Wits University
Carruthers has built a remarkable career as a wildlife author and environmental consultant.
Wits University has awarded a Gold Medal to Vincent Carruthers in recognition of his contribution in the fields of zoology and ecology.
Carruthers has been credited with catapulting the frogs of southern Africa into the limelight through his work. He and Neville Passmore collaborated to produce the first reliable, scientifically valid, and beautifully and clearly illustrated field guide to the frog fauna of South Africa. The book, South African Frogs (Wits Press 1979) in set a world standard.
Over the years Carruthers has expanded on this legacy and is credited with being one of the few people who, through his studies, recognised early that amphibians play a role as biological indicators of climate change and wetland health.
“Through meticulous research, scholarship and outreach as a citizen scientist, Carruthers has made a valuable and outstanding contribution to our knowledge and understanding of many aspects of the South African natural environment. He is surely deserving of the University Gold Medal for his remarkable work, achievements and his influence,” states the citation read when the medal was awarded.
The medal was presented at the Faculty of Humanities’ graduation ceremony on Monday, 4 July 2016.
In his acceptance speech, the environmentalist thanked the University for the honour, adding: “I am very proud to be associated with such an eminent institution at the forefront of scholarship and political and economic life of the country.“
Carruthers, whose relationship with the University began in 1979, reflected on the role played by the University through the years.
Wits has earned its place, as “each decade placed challenging demands on the University’s capacity to survive and to thrive – but thrive it has. It has become a critical pillar of wisdom in these complex times.”
Carruthers showed his mettle when he called on the University and the graduands to break the boundaries between the humanities and science disciplines. The solutions to today’s challenges can only be solved by interdisciplinary teams who realise the value and contribution of other fields, he emphasised.
Over four decades, Carruthers has built a remarkable career as a wildlife author and environmental consultant and his origins in this field distinguish him. His early academic pursuits in the field of commerce stand in stark contrast to his later career of an environmental consultant.
In the course of his environmental career, Carruthers has received awards that recognise his leadership. These include the Chancellor’s Medal from North-West University (2013); the Zoological Society of South Africa’s Stevenson-Hamilton Medal, for his exceptional amateur scientific endeavours(1989); the Paul Harris Fellowship from the Rotary Foundation (2009); Certificate of Merit from the Transvaal Herpetological Association (1990); and honorary life memberships of, to give just one example, the Mountain Club of South Africa.
He is an outstanding facilitator and has assisted a number of organisations, including Wits University, the South African National Parks, and the former Transvaal Division of Nature Conservation with management, research, and structural issues. Under his leadership as executive director (1982-1985), the Wildlife Society of Southern Africa experienced its peak years as a player in the environmental arena. Recognising the value of responsible tourism, Carruthers and his partners established the Sustainable Tourism Research Institute of Southern Africa (STRISA) in 1998. STRISA focusses on community-driven small and medium enterprise projects in rural areas, focusing on Limpopo Province.
The power of humanity
- Wits University
Professor George Ellis challenges graduands to value the humanity of all and make a difference in the lives of others.
“You have the power to make a real difference. The contribution you will make will depend on the values which underlie your work and your life. Life’s most pertinent question is: What are you doing for others? Are we living our lives just for ourselves or for the common good?”
These were the questions that George Ellis, Emeritus Professor at the University of Cape Town (UCT) posed to the graduands at the Faculties of Humanities, Science, and Engineering and the Built Environment graduation ceremony on 5 July 2016.
Ellis received an honorary Doctorate at the at the graduation ceremony for his contribution to the field of science and cosmology.
During the National Party reign in the 1970s and 1980s, Ellis was a vocal opponent of apartheid. It was during this period that his research focused on the more philosophical aspects of cosmology, for which he won the Templeton Prize.
Professor Ellis is the recipient of many other awards including: the Order of the Star of South Africa, awarded by former President Nelson Mandela in 1999; the Order of Mapungubwe awarded by former President Thabo Mbeki; honorary degrees from UCT and three other universities; and the De Beers gold medal awarded by the South African Institute of Physics.
He was delighted to receive an honorary doctorate from Wits, which he described as an illustrious institution. He hailed the University’s quality of degrees and emphasised that the graduands were receiving their degrees from a world class institution, and that their degrees would be recognised anywhere in the world.
“The degrees have value because of the status and recognition that this University has achieved through the dedicated work of hundreds of academics and staff over the course of the century. Your degrees have real institutional worth. You will have access to many further opportunities both here and abroad because of this recognition.”
He added that he was accepted for his doctoral studies at Cambridge because the BSc degree he was awarded at his alma mater, UCT was world class.
“Treasure what it means to be awarded your degrees from this institution. Your academic achievements will be recognised anywhere in the world as well as by businesses and other institutions in South Africa. The international recognition which you will receive is part of a very important theme. Students from Africa – and particularly from South Africa – can be a success story for the students from anywhere in the world. Let’s rejoice in this quality and in this recognition. “
He urged graduands to use their degrees to make a significant contribution to the world, as the world will present a wealth of opportunities for them after their graduation.
“You have graduated with these degrees in science, technology, the built enivironment and engineering. These are subjects which have the ability to change the world. You will shape the world in which we live with the technologies and the science that underlie those technologies. These technologies will change the world. The development of new technologies will affect all human life forever,” he said.
Ellis encouraged the graduands to uphold the spirit of ubuntu, by caring for the poor and caring for others, valuing the humanity of all, and rising above the temptations of stereotypes.
“An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity,” he said, quoting Martin Luther King.
Madiba, Fidel and a dream of doctors
- Deborah Minors
South African Cuban-trained doctors have graduated at Wits through an agreement forged by Nelson Mandela and Fidel Castro in 1996.
The 2016 cohort brings to 520 the total number of South African Cuban-trained medical alumni since 1996. Some of the original cohort from the 1990s attended the graduation of the 61 South Africans who received their MBBCh degrees in the Great Hall on 8 July 2016.
The training of South Africans in medicine by Cuba began with a bilateral agreement between former South African President Nelson Mandela and former Cuban President Fidel Castro. This year South Africa and Cuba celebrate 20 years of bilateral collaboration as well as the anniversary of the first cohort to train in Cuba in 1996.
Among this original group was Dr Desmond Kegakilwe, who went to Cuba in 1998. Kegakilwe now works at the Wits Reproductive Health and HIV Institute (WRHI) and he is Chairperson of the Rural Doctors Association of Southern Africa (RuDASA).
Hope for a nation
Speaking at the graduation, Wits Vice-Chancellor and Principal, Professor Adam Habib, acknowledged Cuba’s contribution:
“This medical programme is an enormous sacrifice for a country that is small and under-resourced, but which has made its own contribution towards us addressing the historical disparities of our past. We thank Cuba for its solidarity and grand gesture.”
Habib urged graduands to be mindful of their responsibility to South Africa. He reminded them that the likes of Nelson Mandela, Steve Biko, Helen Zille, and others had traversed the Great Hall stage to graduate at Wits:
“Remember that you walk in the footsteps of Mandela on this stage. You are the product of training because of a small country in the Caribbean. Remember to make your own mark by providing a service to the most disadvantaged of our society. You represent hope for a nation and a continent.”
The storm still rages
Dr Links Gavin, 27, delivered the graduates’ message at the graduation. “We made it!” he began and quoted singer R. Kelly’s lyrics, the storm is over.
“But the storm of poverty and malnutrition is still raging. It’s a storm that rages in our own townships and in our own families,” said Links. “There’s a need for young women and men to impact our communities. We have our heads full of knowledge, hearts full of compassion, and our hands ready to serve in communities.”
Links later described the Cuban experience as “the best time of my life”, despite the challenge of studying medicine in Spanish. The entire first year in Cuba is dedicated to learning the language.
Links is an alumnus of the University of Pretoria. He will complete his internship at Tshepong, a Wits satellite training hospital in Klerksdorp, North West Province. His passion is surgery and he aims to specialise as an ear, nose and throat physician. He said the burden of disease is different in Cuba: “I only encountered one patient living with HIV.”
Prioritising primary healthcare in SA
Dr Aaron Motsoaledi, National Minister of Health told graduands that South Africa grapples with the “quadruple burden of disease”. These are communicable diseases (HIV, AIDS, TB); maternal and child mortality; non-communicable diseases (lifestyle diseases, cancer, mental illnesses, etc.); and injury and trauma.
The training of South African doctors in Cuba strengthens the capacity of government to ensure better health for all, said Motsoaledi. Furthermore, the National Department of Health (NDH) is working with eight medical schools to increase student intake, expand the schools, and build more medical schools – one of which has now been established in Limpopo Province after 30 years. These measures aim to realise Vision 2030, the NDH’s National Development Plan.
“Vision 2030 says that by 2030 life expectancy in South Africa must be 70 years, we must have an HIV-free generation, and the quadruple burden of disease must be reduced,” said Motsoaledi. “If you go to the NHI [National Health Insurance] White Paper it says primary healthcare is going to be the heart of the healthcare system. The Cuban model promotes community. Many countries in the world are following the Cuban example [of prioritising primary healthcare].”
Kudos to Cuban healthcare
Motsoaledi said Cuba was the first country in the world to receive a World Health Organisation certificate for eliminating mother-to-child transmission of HIV.
His Excellency Carlos Fernández de Cossío, Cuban Ambassador to South Africa, told graduands:
“During your training, Cuba provided the best it can offer in its experience; the same experience that has Cuba recognised for its healthcare indicators. You are equipped with the technical science and skills to enable you to save lives, to heal, to improve the living conditions of your fellow countrymen – a huge but beautiful responsibility.”
Enthusiastic young people should be given a chance, even if they don’t have the experience.
“They (just) need to have enthusiasm and want to work and connect with people,” Stanley Bergman, CEO of Henry Schein, a leading Fortune 500 Company, told graduands after he was conferred with an Honorary Doctorate in Commerce at Wits University.
Delivering the keynote address during the ceremony for graduands from the Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management, Bergman said he is fortunate to have had many mentors who imparted valuable lessons to him, such as Jay Schein of Henry Schein, his high school teacher Mr Earl, and Wits Law Professor Ellison Kahn.
As a youngster, he battled ill-health and was often absent from school, had illegible handwriting and was advised not to consider applying to university.
However, his courage combined with the kindness and belief of his mentors paved the way for him to rise above expectations.
Time for bosses is over
Staying on mentorship, Bergman said today’s businesses were searching for a different kind of leader.
“In the year 2016, no one wants bosses. We all want coaches, facilitators and mentors – the world of bosses is gone. Mentors who will support people and ideas,” said Bergman.
“You have an opportunity to repay your education to society by being a mentor to the people you are going to work for going forward. Business leaders have an obligation to give back to society. ”
He added: “We must also engage with all those with whom we come into contact, regardless of race, class or culture so that we can build bridges and an inclusive humanity for the betterment of society. You need to remember that every single step you take will be an education – you will learn as much outside the classroom, as inside.”
About Stanley Bergman
Since 1989, Bergman has been Chairman of the Board and CEO of Henry Schein, Inc., a Fortune 500 company and the world’s largest provider of health care products and services to office-based dental, animal health and medical practitioners, with operations or affiliates in 33 countries. The Company’s 2015 sales reached a record $10.6 billion. Henry Schein has been a Fortune World’s Most Admired Company for 15 consecutive years and is ranked #1 in its industry on Fortune’s 2016 list of the World’s Most Admired Companies.
Bergman has made a success of his career and has made a difference to countless people’s lives as a champion of preventive health care and universal health care access. He also has advanced dialogue among people of different cultures and beliefs to work towards a better understanding among people.
Bergman and his wife Dr Marion Bergman, a medical specialist and Wits alumna, and their sons, Paul and Eddie, are active supporters of organisations fostering the arts, higher education, cultural diversity and grassroots health care and sustainable entrepreneurial economic development initiatives in the United States, Africa and other developing regions of the world.
As the longstanding Chair of the Wits Fund Inc. in New York, Bergman and his family work on growing and advancing the University’s alumni body in the United States, many of whom also generously support Wits and serve as ambassadors for Wits in their respective fields.
They have contributed to a range of programmes in Africa, including refurbishing the only dental school in Tanzania. In the 1990s the Bergmans were avid supporters of an organisation called Medical Education for South African Blacks (MESAB), which provided approximately 7,000 scholarships for South African health professional students. Dr Bergman was the treasurer and served on MESAB’s board.
Bergman serves as a board member or advisor for numerous institutions including New York University College of Dentistry; the University of Pennsylvania School of Dental Medicine; the Columbia University Medical Center; World Economic Forum’s Health Care Governors; the Business Council for International Understanding; and the Metropolitan Opera.
He is an honorary member of the American Dental Association and the Alpha Omega Dental Fraternity. His awards include being the recipient of the Ellis Island Medal of Honor; the CR Magazine Corporate Responsibility Lifetime Achievement Award; a Doctor of Humane Letters from A.T. Still University’s Arizona School of Dentistry and Oral Health; an Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from Case Western Reserve University; and Honorary Fellowship of King’s College London and the International College of Dentists.
Out of tragedy comes change
- Wits University
Professor Beric Skews honoured for his distinguished contributions to South African science and engineering.
When an accidental explosion in 1959 killed hundreds of mine workers at the President Steyn Gold Mine near Welkom in the Free State, a young Beric Skews’ career was about to take a new turn.
As a junior lecturer in Mechanical Engineering at Wits University he was asked to help advised investigators as to what had happened.
“Once you start work on blast waves and explosions, and when you look at the literature, you get involved in supersonic flight, like the Concorde,” he recalls his career trajectory into aeronautical engineering.
The following decade, he helped establish the aeronautical engineering degree at Wits that to this day remains the only internationally recognised formal degree in this field in South Africa.
It is for this and his immense contributions to the field of aeronautical engineering, the academia and South Africa that Wits University conferred an honorary doctorate on Professor Skews, a global leader in aeronautical engineering and currently the Director of the Flow Research Unit at Wits.
Even though Beric holds honorary doctorates from several universities around the world, for him, this recognition by his alma mater is “top of the pops. It is absolutely amazing. This is number one to have your own place say to you: ‘Ja, I think you did an okay job’.”
Citation: Professor Beric William Skews
Over the past five decades, the South African academic community has been honoured to embrace within its ranks one of the most illustrious and prolific scientists of his time in the field of aeronautical engineering.
Professor Beric Skews, currently the Director of the Flow Research Unit at Wits University, which he founded, is a renowned researcher, scientist and engineer who holds honorary doctorates from several universities, and who has dedicated the most part of his life to Wits. He has mentored many staff members and postgraduate students at Wits.
An Honorary Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society, Skews has achieved what is described as “the world’s highest distinction for aerospace achievement, awarded only for the most outstanding contributions to the aerospace profession”. He is one of only 85 professionals, out of a membership of over 21 000 to be honoured in this manner for his contribution towards establishing the aeronautical engineering degree at Wits in the 1960s.
The Wits aeronautical engineering degree to this day remains the only internationally recognised formal degree in this field in South Africa. Wits acknowledge him for his outstanding efforts in this regard.
A fellow of several learned societies, Skews is a Member of the Academy of Science of South Africa and a Senior Member of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. He has also served as the President of the Southern Africa Division of the Royal Aeronautical Society, and the South African Institution of Aeronautical Engineers, amongst others.
Global leader
There is no doubt that he is one of the global leaders in his field of research.
In 1987, he achieved an “A-rating” from the National Research Foundation (NRF) which acknowledges him as an international research leader in his field, an achievement that he continues to hold to this day. Skews was awarded the NRF President’s award in both 2007 and 2012.
His work was recognised in a two-page editorial in the prestigious journal Nature, in which he was commended for his work on the aerodynamic autorotation of bodies. His international status is well demonstrated by the fact that he is a research manuscript reviewer for 32 significant international journals and an editor of three international journals.
A distinguished, respected leader in the academy, Skews’ accolades are too many to mention, so only a few are highlighted.
In September 2012 the Japan High-Speed Imaging Society awarded him a Gold Medal at the 30th International Congress on High-Speed Imaging and Photonics for his contributions to high-speed imaging. In the same year, he received the Rem Soloukhin Gold Hands Silver Award and Medal in recognition of his outstanding contributions to the field of flow visualisation.
His expertise is in demand internationally and Skews has lectured around the world including in Taiwan, China, Japan, South Africa, Australia and the USA. He received an Honorary Fellowship to the Society of Shock Wave Research in India in 2005.
In 2009, the South African Institute of Mechanical Engineering requested that he deliver the John Orr Lecture where he was also awarded a Gold Medal in light of his remarkable expertise. At the time, he was only the second South African to receive this honour.
He received honorary membership to the South African Association for Theoretical and Applied Mechanics in 2004, again one of only two honorary members at the time to receive this accolade.
Illustrious academic career
Born in Piet Retief in 1936, Skews moved to Johannesburg where he completed his BSc in Mechanical Engineering in 1958, followed by an MSc in Engineering in 1961 and a PhD in 1967 at Wits. He has dedicated his career to the study of shock and expansion waves, gas dynamics and flow visualisation.
His professional career began in 1959 as a Junior Lecturer in Mechanical Engineering at Wits University. Since then, he has held positions as an Associate Professor at McMaster University in Canada, as a Professor of Aeronautical Engineering and Head of the School of Mechanical Engineering at Wits and as Visiting Professor at Tohoku University in Japan. He has also held a Rector’s Fellowship at the University of New South Wales in Australia.
A “Witsie” through and through, Skews has led an illustrious academic career at Wits spanning over five decades, aside from a seven-year stint at Eskom in the early 1980s.
Since his formal retirement, he has held a special post-retirement research position in the School of Mechanical, Industrial and Aeronautical Engineering at Wits, where he continues to share his specialist knowledge with staff, students and researchers.
He is registered as both a Professional Engineer with the Engineering Council of South Africa and as a Chartered Engineer with the Engineering Council in the United Kingdom.
Extraordinary contributions
It is with great distinction and pride that we acknowledge Skews, one of our own, for the immense contribution that he has made to the academy through teaching and research, but also through sharing and giving of his incredible self – his knowledge and his proficiency – for the benefit of our generation and of those to come.
There is no doubt that Skews has made, and continues to make extraordinary contributions to science and engineering.
In recognition of this, Professor Beric Skews is awarded an honorary doctorate degree from the University of the Witwatersrand.
Beating anxiety with knowledge
- Wits University
Professor Crain Soudien urges graduands to use their education to overcome their fears.
South Africans at academic institutions are extremely disorientated, which is no less traumatic than the devastation and grief of some Americans following their presidential elections, says Professor Crain Soudien at the Faculty of Humanities’ graduation ceremony on 6 December 2016.
The student protests on campuses countrywide over the last two years have students questioning themselves about their feelings as they navigate to campus daily.
Many students become anxious as they try to make sense of seething anger when standing directly in front of the threatening inyala, their fears of a fire extinguisher being discharged in their faces in a claustrophobic classroom, and racial prejudice.
“During these trying times we can start by gathering our courage and turning to each other for support,” says Soudien. “We have to be together.”
He urged the graduates not to despair and encouraged them to find a logical moment of assurance in their disorientation by using their Wits-acquired education.
“This is where our education has to kick in. We have to make our education consequential. It has to work for us. We have to use it to make sense of the world and the people in it. Making sense is hard work. You have to listen carefully. Listen to the grayness of what is being said. This educational moment depends on all we have been taught, conscious and unconsciously.”
He added that the graduates need to become custodians of a commitment to deep thinking that the University has cultivated in them - a privilege Soudien hopes the graduates cherish for the rest of their lives.
“Our hope must come from the assurance that each of us, as products of this University, will for the rest of our live. Without deep thinking, we make ourselves vulnerable to all forms of populism, clichés, ideological seductions and untruths. We simply become blind followers. Our hope is in you.”
About Professor Crain Soudien
Professor Crain Soudien is the Chief Executive Officer of the Human Sciences Research Council and a former Deputy Vice-Chancellor at the University of Cape Town where he remains an Emeritus Professor in Education and African Studies.
His publications in the areas of social difference, culture, education policy, comparative education, educational change, public history and popular culture include three books, three edited collections and over 190 articles, reviews, reports and book chapters.
He is also the co-editor of three books on District Six in Cape Town, a jointly edited book on comparative education and the author of The Making of Youth Identity in Contemporary South
Africa: Race, Culture and Schooling. He wrote the book Realising the Dream: Unlearning the Logic of Race in the South African School and served as the co-author of Inclusion and Exclusion in South Africa and Indian Schools.
Professor Soudien was educated at the University of Cape Town and UNISA and holds a doctorate from the State University of New York at Buffalo.
He is involved in a number of local, national and international social and cultural organisations. Professor Soudien serves as the Chairperson of the Independent Examinations Board and is the former Chairperson of the District Six Museum Foundation and a former President of the World Council of Comparative Education Societies. He has served as Chair of the Ministerial Committee on Transformation in Higher Education and is currently the chair of the Ministerial Committee to evaluate textbooks for discrimination.
Professor Soudien is a fellow of a number of local and international academies and serves on the boards of a number of cultural, heritage, education and civil society structures.
Contribute to the Sustainable Development Goals
- Wits University
Wits' Professor Peter Cooper urges graduates to make a difference in the health sector.
Professor Peter Cooper, Assistant Head of the Department of Paediatrics addressed graduates at the Faculty of Health Sciences graduation ceremony on 13 December 2016.
Cooper was appointed as Professor in the Department of Paediatrics at the University of the Witwatersrand and the Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic Hospital in April 1995.
He served as the Academic Head of the Department of Paediatrics from 2003 until October 2016 and as the Assistant Head of School since 2013.
Professor Cooper graduated with an MBBCh from the University of Cape Town in 1974 and joined the Wits Department of Paediatrics in October 1978 as a Registrar.He then joined the Neonatology Division at the then Johannesburg Hospital becoming the Head of Unit in 1985.
He moved to the then Baragwanath Hospital and took over as Head of the Neonatal Division in 1988 where he remained until 1995.
During this time, a number of paediatricians who are prominent today started their careers under him, including Sithembiso Velaphi and Haroon Saloojee, both now professors in the Department, and Glenda Gray, the current president of the South African Medical Research Council.
Professor Cooper has served on numerous University and Hospital committees and was appointed as Chairperson of the Medical Advisory Committee at the Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic Hospital from 1998 to 2009.
He was actively involved with the National Medical and Dental Association in the 1980s, an organisation which broke away from the mainstream medical association over the handling of doctors involved in the care of Steve Biko at the time of his death.
He served as its branch chairperson from 1986 to 1988.
Professor Cooper has held a number of executive positions in South African paediatric and neonatal organisations and served as the president of the Union of National African Paediatric Societies and Associations for a three year term.
He was a member of the Executive Committee of the International Paediatric Association and served as its representative on the Board of the Partnership for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health under the auspices of the World Health Organization from 2013, a post that he still holds today.
Professor Cooper was awarded the Convocation Distinguished Teacher’s Award and the Philip V. Tobias Medal for Distinguished Teaching.
He is the author or co-author of over 70 publications in national and international peer reviewed journals and the author of several chapters in books, mainly related to neonatal and nutrition.
He is soon to retire as the Head of the Department but will remain involved with both the Paediatric Department and the Faculty of Health Sciences.
Reinvent yourself and remain relevant
- Wits University
Professor Cuthbert Musingwini urges graduands to continue learning and to remain relevant throughout their future careers.
Musingwini is the President of the Southern African Institute of Mining and Metallurgy, a Professor of Mining Engineering and Head of the School of Mining Engineering at Wits University.
He was addressing graduands at the Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment graduation ceremony on 13 December 2016.
Professor Musingwini has over 20 years of mining engineering experience in mine production management and planning, consulting and academia.
He occasionally serves as a consultant specialising in mining business optimisation and valuation.
He holds a BSc Honours degree in Mining Engineering from the University of Zimbabwe.
He obtained his Masters and Doctoral degrees in mining engineering from Wits University.
Professor Musingwini is registered as a professional mining engineer with the Engineering Council of South Africa, is a member of the International Society of Mining Professors and is a National Research Foundation rated researcher.
He has supervised to graduation several postgraduate students and is occasionally called upon to examine PhD theses in mine planning optimisation and valuation for the University of Queensland and Curtin University in Australia.
Professor Musingwini has served on the Netherlands Initiative for Capacity Development in Higher Education for capacity building projects in Zambia and Mozambique.
He serves on the Engineering Council of South Africa’s Professional Advisory Committee and Engineering Programme Accreditation Committee, which is responsible for accrediting engineering degree programmes following the internationally recognised Washington Accord.
He is the Managing Editor of the International Journal of Mining, Reclamation and Environment and serves on the Editorial Board of the Journal of the Southern African Institute of Mining and Metallurgy.
He also chaired the Mine Planning and Equipment Selection conference, held for the first time in South Africa in 2015.
Professor Musingwini is passionate about developing others and believes that a good education is the key to success in life.
Health sciences key to reducing triggers of poverty
- Wits University
Receiving his honorary doctorate, Professor William Pick tells new doctors they have a much bigger role to play than keeping their patients healthy.
As future custodians of the health of South Africa’s people, the over 500 graduands of the Wits Faculty of Health Sciences carry a huge responsibility to their country.
This is according to Professor William Pick, Emeritus Professor at the University of the Witwatersrand, who addressed about 500 graduands of the Wits Health Sciences Faculty in December.
Speaking at their graduation ceremony, where he was awarded the degree of Doctor of Medicine Honoris Causa, Pick told the graduands that as doctors, they can help people to be healthier, and therefore reduce the triggers into poverty.
“As we celebrate best and brightest in society today, I ask the custodians and future custodians of healthy populations to look at the societal context in which you practice your craft. In the context of the world population – 50% cannot afford housing and healthcare, 25% don’t have enough food to eat. People are triggered into poverty through illness, injury and death. Yet we know that as healthcare practitioners our intervention can make a difference,” he said.
Pick who is also the former head of the School of Public Health, and retired interim president of the Medical Research Council, added that the improved health of a country results in higher GDP of countries.
“Health is no longer confined to provide cure, care or encouragement. It has a far more profound contribution to make to improving the human condition. Our job is to ensure that the craft that we practice is to promote, sustain and contribute to a bigger social endeavor,” he said. “You are the leaders of tomorrow and the problems you face have many challenges. But as a graduate of this great African University, you can to rise to the challenge, armed with the commitment to improve the human condition, you will find real fulfillment every day.”
In reading out Professor Pick’s citation, Professor Martin Veller, Dean of Health Sciences, lauded Pick, for his distinguished leadership in public health and whose life and work has been devoted to improving healthcare for all South Africans.
The ceremony saw over 500 students graduating with degrees in health sciences, including in dentistry, medicine, medical and health sciences, clinical medical practice, nursing, occupational therapy, physiotherapy and pharmacy. The faculty also conferred 134 Master’s degrees in science and medicine and 31 PhDs.
When the Rand Daily Mail, where Professor Anton Harber used to work as a political reporter, got closed down by the Apartheid government in 1985, he and a colleague decided to start their own newspaper. 
Legendary South African documentary photographer Santu Mofokeng was honoured with an Honorary Doctorate from Wits University on Monday, 4 July.
When an accidental explosion in 1959 killed hundreds of mine workers at the President Steyn Gold Mine near Welkom in the Free State, a young Beric Skews’ career was about to take a new turn. 
