UCT Selection of a new Vice-Chancellor and other updates

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UCT Selection of a new Vice-Chancellor and other updates

Dear students and colleagues
The campus announcement aims to inform members of the University of Cape Town community about:
1. Selection of a new Vice-Chancellor of UCT
The University of Cape Town (UCT) Council is seeking to appoint a new Vice-Chancellor to take over from Dr Max Price, whose second five-year term ends on 30 June 2024. The new Vice-Chancellor will provide strategic leadership to the university and will be responsible for all operational management. The closing date for nominations is 16 October 2024 and the closing date for applications is 30 October 2024.

2. Free Education Planning Group: Call for student researcher
You may recall that the Free Education Planning Group (FEPG) is an initiative of the UCT community. The role of the FEPG is to support a formal research programme into the economic policy framework for higher education, including researching the possibility of and the implications for fee-free higher education.
Throughout the course of the year, the FEPG has called for interested parties to join the group, to participate in their research activities and to participate in engagements across the campus. Now, the call is for students to apply to be part of the student research team as the FEPG formalises its research agenda. The deadline for applications is 16 October 2024.

3. SRC elections underway
Students’ Representative Council (SRC) elections began on Monday, 9 October. All registered undergraduate and postgraduate students are eligible to vote online or via paper ballot – there are several voting stations across campuses for paper-based voting (one vote per person). Online voting will close on Friday, 13 October, at 23:00. Paper-based voting will close on Friday, 13 October, with the last voting station closing at 18:00.

4. UCT Council agrees to name changes
In a meeting held on 7 October 2024, UCT Council agreed to not consider renaming Jameson Hall to Sara Baartman Hall until the Names of Buildings Committee (NOBC) has completed its procedures. The NOBC procedures require that a recommended name be published for comment in a second phase of consultation with university staff and students. In the interim, Jameson Hall will be renamed Memorial Hall with immediate effect.
Council also considered and approved three recommendations from the NOBC: a learning space in the Menzies Building will be named the Eskom Student Glass House; the space housing the Electron Microscope Unit in the New Engineering Building will be named the Aaron Klug Centre for Imaging and Analysis; and a memorial in the Faculty of Health Sciences will be named Hamilton Naki.
5. Works of Art Committee consultative programme
The newly constituted Works of Art Committee (WOAC) will host an event as part of its consultative programme on Thursday, 12 October, at 18:00 at the Memorial and Molly Blackburn halls on UCT’s upper campus. The event is titled “Re-Making Place: Towards a new vision for art at UCT”. This is part of the WOAC’s consultative programme, which entails, among other things, developing clear curatorial policy guidelines informed by the context of the university’s public spaces.

6. Renaming of residence in honour of Harold Cressy
At an event on 3 October 2024, UCT renamed its Palm Court residence in Mowbray in honour of Mr Harold Cressy, the first coloured person to gain a degree in South Africa at the South African College, which later became UCT.