Wamkelekile, Welkom
National Order for UCT’s Ari Sitas
26 April 2019 | Story Helen Swingler. Photo GCIS. Read time 3 min.
Emeritus Professor Ari Sitas, of the University of Cape Town’s (UCT) Re-Centring AfroAsia Project, has received the Order of Mapungubwe from President Cyril Ramaphosa, Chancellor of the National Orders.
National Orders* are the highest awards that the country bestows on its citizens and eminent foreign nationals who have contributed towards the advancement of democracy, and made a significant impact towards improving the lives of South Africans.
The awards also honour individuals who have contributed towards building a non-racial, non-sexist, democratic and prosperous South Africa, as envisaged in the Constitution. The investiture ceremony was held at the Sefako Makgatho Presidential Guesthouse in Pretoria yesterday, 25 April.
The Order of Mapungubwe recognises South Africans who have accomplished excellence and exceptional achievement to the benefit of South Africa and beyond.
Exceptional achievement
The citations reads: “Sitas received the award in Silver for his excellent contribution to social science scholarship and progressive policy-making. He is also a renowned storyteller and poet. He is a multi-talented social scientist who moves effortlessly between profound knowledge production and the arts.”
“He is a multi-talented social scientist who moves effortlessly between profound knowledge production and the arts.”
The scholar was one of two recipients of the Order of Mapungubwe in Silver; the other was awarded to Malik Maaza for his outstanding contribution to the field of nanoscience and nanotechnology.
The honour follows another distinction for Sitas, who has been awarded a prestigious Gutenberg Chair. The titular chair will be based at Strasbourg University, France.
Sitas also recently travelled to Cyprus to negotiate a major bi-communal and tri-continental musical drama for 2020, titled Othello’s Wild Years. According to a press release, this is to be performed in the in-between “dead zone” of the divided island.
This arose out of the Re-centring AfroAsia Project’s research, generously funded by the AW Mellon Foundation, and will involve composers and performers from South Africa and India.
* The Order of Mapumgubwe is one of six national orders, which include the Order of Mendi for Bravery, the Order of Ikhamanga, the Order of the Baobab, the Order of Luthuli, and the Order of the Companions of OR Tambo.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Please view the republishing articles page for more information.
New Generation of Academics Programme (nGAP)
UCT has responded energetically to the New Generation of Academics Programme (nGAP), an opportunity provided by the Department of Higher Education (DHET) to build a new generation of black South African academics. The DHET’s 2015 vision document, “Staffing South Africa’s Universities Framework: A comprehensive, transformative approach to developing future generations of academics and building staff capacity”, proposes a suite of initiatives to address the challenge, with nGAP being the major instrument to increase the numbers of black South African academics.
The programme “involves the recruitment of highly capable scholars as new academics, against carefully designed and balanced equity considerations and in light of the disciplinary areas of greatest need”. The nGAP scholars are appointed into permanent positions where from the outset their conditions are customised to ensure their successful induction into the ranks of established academics.
The DHET provides funding over a six-year period to support the appointment of an nGAP lecturer, and their time is protected to provide the best possible opportunity for the completion of a doctorate degree in the shortest possible time. Once the degree is completed, the nGAP lecturer’s teaching commitments are steadily increased until they shoulder a full teaching load.
Since the first advertisement for nGAP posts in 2015, UCT has been awarded 17 nGAP positions: 5 (Phase 1), 4 (Phase 2), 3 (Phase 3) and 5 (Phase 4). These are distributed across all faculties.
UCT’s nGAP scholars operate as a single cohort, managed and coordinated by Dr Robert Morrell. Lecturers meet for quarterly meetings, writing retreats and various capacity-building activities all designed to support the completion of postgraduate qualifications (particularly doctorates) and to develop records of achievement that will testify to their emergence as self-standing, excellent academics. Each lecturer is mentored by a senior scholar, who provides support and guidance on the challenges that routinely face academics.
The nGAP manager sets great store in building the cohesion of the cohort and encouraging the establishment of new UCT networks while producing a collaborative, mutually supportive and embracing work culture.
According to Dr Morrell, “This group of academics will lead UCT in 15 to 20 years’ time ... Their vision of excellence, of being African and South African, of serving a wider community and producing knowledge for the planet, the continent and the country, will power UCT in years to come.”
Newsletters
In the news
