UCT Summer School 2024 and other updates

Dear colleagues and students

The University of Cape Town (UCT) is celebrating 100 years of lifelong learning through the 2024 Summer School, which is currently underway. Read about this and other developments on campus.

1. Summer School 2024 – Celebrating 100 years

The annual University of Cape Town (UCT) Summer School is underway. Celebrating 100 years of continuous lifelong learning this year, the 2024 UCT Summer School commenced on Saturday, 13 January and will end on Saturday, 27 January 2024. Before the UCT Summer School was established in 1950, an Extension Lectures Committee of the University Senate was formed in 1924 to formalise ad hoc lectures. This committee organised fortnightly lectures by members of staff and other prominent experts. In 1949, a decision was made to expand the extra-mural work of the Extension Lectures Committee, and the Centre for Extra-Mural Studies was founded.

• Read the full VC Desk: Summer School 2024 – Celebrating 100 years of learning.

2. Annual Bongani Mayosi Memorial Lecture

UCT’s Faculty of Health Sciences, in partnership with the Bongani Mayosi Foundation, will co-host the fourth edition of the annual Bongani Mayosi Memorial Lecture on Friday, 26 January 2024 at 18:00 SAST.

The lecture will be presented by UCT alumnus, Dr Vuyane Mhlomi. A distinguished healthcare leader and innovator, Dr Mhlomi holds an MBChB from UCT, an MBA from Saïd Business School at the University of Oxford, and a DPhil from New College, University of Oxford.

The legacy of Professor Mayosi will continue to have a long-term impact on the aspirations and success of African health sciences students, academics and researchers. This hybrid lecture will be a celebration of African scholarship.

• Read the full VC Desk: Annual Bongani Mayosi Memorial Lecture.

3. ICTS scheduled maintenance on Sunday, 21 January

Please note that Sunday, 21 January 2024 will be an ICTS scheduled maintenance slot. Special arrangements have been made for this maintenance slot so that PeopleSoft, RMS, Perceptive Content and BusinessObjects will only be unavailable from 05:00 to 09:00.

All other ICT services, excluding Amathuba, email, Microsoft 365 services and ServiceNow, will be unavailable for the duration of the maintenance slot from 09:00 to 17:00. The following buildings will also have intermittent network access during this time:

• Mowbray Maternity Hospital
• Gugulethu Clinic
• School for Legal Practice (Belmont Office Park, Rondebosch)
• Retreat Health
• Valkenberg Hospital
• Heideveld Clinic

Please remember to consult the scheduled ICTS maintenance slots before planning any teaching, conferences, meetings, etc. that require ICT services.

4. Research support and postgrad resources at UCT

In its bid to provide full support and a seamless postgraduate experience to students and their supervisors, the office of the Deputy Vice-Chancellor: Research and Internationalisation, has shared some useful resources, reminders on timelines, and some reflection on projects and pilots available at the university to support postgraduate students.

• Read the full DVC Desk: Postgraduate resources to enable completion of your degree.

The office has also highlighted a number of service departments and their clusters, located throughout the university, that are responsible for providing research support and infrastructure. Through the Research Support Transformation, the university is working on a number of initiatives for increased visibility of research support on offer to the UCT research community and streamlining these research support systems. One of the key initiatives is the creation of the Research Project Navigator. This helpful tool is focused on the whole research project lifecycle, from the initial proposal through application to funders, contracting with funders, project management and finally project closure phases, to support the research user through the entire process.

• Read the full DVC Desk: Building research support at UCT – introducing the Research Project Navigator.

5. Public statements and protests by members of the UCT community

Events at local, regional or global levels that threaten peace, the well-being of citizens, and often their survival touch us in different ways. These often lead to responses in the form of expression of opinions or solidarity, or moral outrage, in line with our personal positions and values. The conflict in Israel and Gaza is a case in point. It has elicited strong reactions at UCT and beyond, with individuals or groups vigorously exercising their rights in asserting their views.

• Read the full VC Desk: Public statements and protests by members of the UCT community.

6. Update on Leadership Lekgotla roles

Various recruitment processes are underway or set to get underway at senior management level, otherwise known as the Leadership Lekgotla. Currently there are two positions that have been advertised, four that will be advertised/readvertised in the very near future, and one in which there was recently a substantive appointment made.

• Read the full VC Desk: Update on Leadership Lekgotla roles.
• Read the full VC Desk: Farewell to DVC for Research and Internationalisation.
• Read the full VC Desk: Farewell to Executive Director: CMD.

Communication and Marketing Department

Read previous communications:

• From the UCT Executive
• Campus Announcements