Campus announcements
Inaugural lecture by Professor Maswime and other updates
28 June 2023Dear colleagues and students
The University of Cape Town (UCT) will host the fifth UCT Inaugural Lecture, this time by Professor Salome Maswime on Wednesday, 12 July 2023. Read about this and other recent developments on campus.
1. Inaugural lecture by Professor Maswime
Professor Salome Maswime will present the fifth lecture in the UCT Inaugural Lecture series on Wednesday, 12 July 2023. The venue will be confirmed closer to the time, on UCT’s social media channels.
Professor Maswime’s lecture is titled “From caesarean section related complications to global surgical systems strengthening”. Caesarean sections are the most widely performed surgery in the world. Yet, African women are 50 times more likely to die from caesarean section complications than women in high-income countries.
She is the head of the Global Surgery Division and was recently appointed as steering committee chair of the University of the Future project. She is also the president of the South African Clinician Scientists Society. She was the Discovery MGH research fellow in 2018 at the Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, and is a former lecturer at Wits University. She has worked in various hospitals in South Africa, including the Chris Hani Baragwanath Academic Hospital in Soweto, Johannesburg, for approximately 10 years. Maswime is a renowned global surgery expert because of her research contributions to caesarean sections. She advocates for women’s health rights and equity in surgical and maternal care. She is an advisor and consultant to several institutions, including the World Health Organization, and has received numerous awards for her commitment to maternal health and ongoing research in maternal health.
2. Francis Wilson Memorial Lecture
UCT, in partnership with the Southern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit (SALDRU) and DataFirst, will host the first annual Francis Wilson Memorial Lecture on Monday, 3 July 2023.
The late Emeritus Professor Francis Wilson, who founded SALDRU in 1975, was among the most pre-eminent economic researchers of his time. His work, combined with a strong social conscience, made him a leading voice for economic justice in apartheid South Africa, exposing the hardship and poverty caused by the migrant labour system and the mining industry. Under his leadership, Professor Wilson put SALDRU and UCT on the map as a leading centre producing hard evidence on poverty, inequality and unemployment. In 2001, he founded DataFirst, which has produced a wealth of survey and administrative data accessible to researchers and policymakers.
The lecture will be held in a hybrid format, however the venue is at capacity and therefore only online registrations are still being accepted.
- Date: Monday, 3 July 2023
Time: 18:00 SAST - Register to watch the lecture online.
- View the programme
The lecture will be delivered by Professor Sir Angus Deaton FBA, a senior scholar and a Dwight D Eisenhower Emeritus Professor of Economics and International Affairs at the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs and the Economics Department, at Princeton University. Professor Deaton was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for his analysis of consumption, poverty and welfare and was a personal friend of Professor Wilson.
Deaton’s lecture is titled “The politics of numbers: economists confront poverty and inequality”.
3. P&S workplace services portal maintenance
The P&S Workplace Services Portal will be undergoing routine maintenance and will not be available between Friday, 30 June 2023, 14:00 and Sunday, 2 July 2023, 22:00. Staff will not have access to the P&S Workplace Services Portal during this time.
For any maintenance emergencies during this period, please contact the Maintenance and Operations Helpdesk on 021 650 4322/4321. The P&S department thanks staff for their patience while this important maintenance update is being undertaken. For any queries, please email the P&S technical support team.
4. Open Textbook Award
Nominations are now open for the 2023 UCT Open Textbook Award. The award is a crucial mechanism for supporting innovative open education activity that addresses issues related to the cost of teaching and learning materials, as well as curriculum change and multilingualism at UCT.
Open textbooks are freely available, openly licensed educational resources with affordances for dynamic, collaborative approaches to textbook authorship, quality assurance and publishing. In addition to the cost-saving aspect, open textbooks provide a means through which to engage students as co-creators and share teaching and learning materials beyond the institution.
The award has a social justice focus and aims to recognise activities that support the university’s transformation efforts.
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