Release of UCT News and other updates

Dear students and colleagues

This campus announcement aims to inform members of the University of Cape Town community about:

1. The April 2017 edition of UCT News is now available

UCT community members push the boundaries of adventure in this month?s edition: sailing around the Antarctic, reaching for the stars with a robotic telescope, mapping Africa?s ionosphere, remaking 17th-century French plays, analysing hybrid hominin skulls, bracing for extreme weather, and engineering a healthy snack into an entrepreneurial opportunity. Don?t miss the excitement.

• Read UCT News April 2017...

2. 2017 Engaged Scholarship Programme launches on 24 May

The 2017 Engaged Scholarship Programme is accepting applications: the deadline is Friday, 28 April 2017. The programme can take a maximum of 20 participants who are interested in enhancing the quality and societal impact of their research, teaching or innovation through community or public engagement.

• Read about the 2017 Engaged Scholarship Programme...

3. Selection of the next Vice-Chancellor of UCT

Vice-Chancellor Dr Max Price will end his second five-year term on 30 June 2018. At its last meeting, Council considered that although the selection process for this position is normally initiated 18 months before the end of the contract of the sitting VC (which would have been January 2017), it would be appropriate to defer this until the current processes of replacing two deputy vice-chancellors were well under way. Council therefore agreed to initiate the selection process for the next VC at its June 2017 meeting. It is expected that the selection committee will be able to recommend a candidate to Council at its December 2017 meeting. This will allow the candidate six months to give notice and to relocate to UCT, if necessary. This period will ideally overlap with the outgoing VC for several months. Before the June 2017 Council meeting, the Human Resources Department will arrange the election of representatives from the various constituencies that are represented on the selection committee. Following advice by the Institutional Forum, Council will consider and finalise the composition of the selection committee at its meeting in June 2017.

4. Mathematics competition comes to upper campus on 20 April

More than 8 000 eager learners from 170 high schools in the Western Cape will take part in the UCT Mathematics Competition on the evening of Thursday, 20 April 2017. Maths teachers and UCT maths staff work together to set the papers, which will be tackled in dozens of venues around UCT?s upper campus. More than 300 local maths teachers and UCT student volunteers will supervise the proceedings. The additional people, buses and private cars on upper campus mean that traffic is likely to be congested from 17:00 on the day.

5. Works of Art Committee to act on recommendations of task team

The campus announcement of 12 April reported that the Works of Art Committee (WOAC) will proceed as a newly constituted joint committee of Council and Senate. Among other things, the WOAC will implement the recommendations of the Works of Art Task Team, which were accepted by Council at its last meeting.

• Read the February 2017 report of the Works of Art Task Team...

6. UCT notes Constitutional Court judgment

UCT notes the Constitutional Court judgment delivered on Wednesday, 12 April 2017, in a case between the university and five persons who took part in protest action on campus in February 2016. UCT notes that the Constitutional Court confirmed that the interdict granted by the Western Cape High Court against the five remains in place. The university notes that the Constitutional Court varied the cost order as granted by a lower court (effectively meaning that each party has to pay its own costs); and that the Constitutional Court confirmed as unassailable the earlier decision by the Supreme Court of Appeal to uphold the order of the High Court of the Western Cape in granting a final interdict against unlawful action.

• Read the judgment...
• Read the media summary...

Communication and Marketing Department