Vice-Chancellor Professor Njabulo Ndebele admires a portrait of Alan Pifer, the founding chairman of the UCT Fund and a past president of the Carnegie Corporation.

Last year, UCT honoured Pifer by naming a grant from the UCT Fund after him to mark the university's 175th anniversary. Pifer could not be present at the ceremony, which took place at the Carnegie Corporation's headquarters in New York, but his sons Daniel and Matthew requested that the portrait handed over at the event be displayed in the Bremner Building at UCT. It arrived in Cape Town recently and has been put on display.

Each year, a UCT scholar whose work contributes to the welfare and advancement of South Africa's disadvantaged groups gets the Alan Pifer Award. This year's recipient was Professor David Chidester, chair of religious studies at UCT and a recently named A-rated researcher.