Peek into world of the exiled

BANISHED from their homes without recourse to justice, ignored by most and largely forgotten by history. ...read more

Judge to lead university

Supreme Court of Appeal president Judge Lex Mpati has been appointed as Rhodes University's chancellor. ...read more

Village doctor, musician will receive awards from Rhodes

A medical doctor who moved to a poor Eastern Cape backwater years ago and set up a community art project will receive an honorary degree from Rhodes University for her groundbreaking work fighting poverty and HIV/Aids. ...read more

New chancellor for Rhodes has strong EC links

SUPREME Court of Appeal judge president Lex Mpati has been appointed as Rhodes University’s new chancellor. ...read more

Response to Opinion Editorials

Dear Dr. Badat, Your articles in Opinion Editorials 2012 answer to the very heart of my intellectual fibre and to my personal and professional quest for a common humanity with fellow south Africans regardless of race, culture, creed, background or socioeconomic status.
...read more

Chancellor: Jakes Gerwel Obituary

Jakes Gerwel (1946–2012): Humble intellectual, scholar and leader ...read more

Fetching back nation's forgotten

In our haste to get away from the past and forge a new South Africa, we turned our backs far too casually on the pain and suffering caused by apartheid. Fortunately there are those like Saleem Badat, an academic and former political activist, who refuse to allow us to forget quite so easily. ...read more

Untold stories to be told at exhibition

There are many untold stories about South Africa, but an exhibition at Constitution Hill is set to reveal those untold stories. ...read more

Rhodes research punching above its weight

Grahamstown is not on the way to anywhere else. If you go to the small Eastern Cape city — it has a cathedral, so it is technically a city — it is likely that you are visiting Rhodes University. ...read more

Two young men prove nothing is impossible

In April last year I attended a graduation ceremony at Rhodes University to ululate for a very close friend of mine. ...read more

Ordered into banishment: the forgotten people of apartheid South Africa

In 2001, Dumisa Ntsebeza and Terry Bell complained in Unfinished Business: South Africa, Apartheid and Truth, that "like so much of South Africa's recent brutal history we shall probably never know exactly how many people were banished and what happened to all of them". ...read more

Rhodes pays tribute to ‘exceptional’ Gerwel

FAMILY, friends and colleagues of the late Rhodes University Chancellor Professor Jakes Gerwel, gathered in Grahamstown yesterday to commemorate the life and work of an intellectual giant who died two weeks ago. ...read more

Remembering Jakes – Chancellor, our chancellor

The death of Rhodes University chancellor Jakes Gerwel will leave a big void in many people’s lives. ...read more

Jakes Gerwel: The epitome of integrity and courage

Professor Gert Johannes "Jakes" Gerwel, who died of complications following heart surgery leaves a legacy of quiet leadership and academic excellence. ...read more

A humble man of intellect, integrity

ONE of the first messages of condolences following the death of Rhodes University chancellor Professor Jakes Gerwel came from a retired academic who said he was: “a good and great man. He will be hard to replace”. ...read more

Rhodes mourns the passing of its Chancellor

Rhodes University mourns and lowers its flag on the passing of its Chancellor, Prof Gert Johannes (Jakes) Gerwel. ...read more

The ugly truth about banishment

In the aftermath of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Dumisa Ntsebeza and Terry Bell complained that 'like so much of South Africa's recent brutal history, we shall probably never know exactly how many people were banished and what happened to all of them'. ...read more

ANC loves only power

Anti-apartheid activist Mamphela Ramphele has slammed the ANC for its backing of the Traditional Courts Bill, sky-high unemployment and the appalling standard of education. ...read more

VC talks to the youth on banning and banishment

Dr Saleem Badat, Rhodes University Vice-Chancellor, is to address the South African youth during the second session of the FrankTalk Radio Dialogue series organised jointly by the Steve Biko Foundation (SBF) and YFM radio station. ...read more

Banishment, apartheid and the law

“For the long years of meticulous research and finally the superb telling of the story of banishment under apartheid, we owe a great debt to the author,” writes renowned advocate George Bizos on Dr Saleem Badat’s latest book. ...read more

VC’s book seeks apartheid’s banished

Rhodes University’s Eden Grove complex played host to the launch of Vice-Chancellor Dr Saleem Badat’s book, entitled The Forgotten People: Political Banishment under Apartheid on Tuesday 16 September. ...read more

Bringing banished in from cold

When Rhodes University vice-chancellor Dr Saleem Badat promised veteran struggle stalwart Helen Joseph he would write a book about 160 “forgotten” South Africans banished by the apartheid government to remote parts of the country he never realised it would take 30 years to complete, writes Daily Dispatch Port Alfred bureau head David MacGregor. ...read more

The Forgotten People

In 2001, in Unfinished Business: South Africa, Apartheid and Truth, Dumisa Ntsebeza and Terry Bell complained that ‘like so much of South Africa’s recent brutal history, we shall probably never know exactly how many people were banished and what happened to all of them’. ...read more

SKA, Science and South Africa

Over the next couple of decades the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) has the potential to propel science and South Africa into the universal age. ...read more

Making radio telescopes see

Professor Oleg Smirnov is the first SKA Chair in Radio Astronomy Techniques and Technologies, which is hosted by Rhodes University. ...read more

Megascience in Africa

At the forefront is the first Rhodes-based SARChI SKA Chair radio astronomer, Professor Oleg Smirnov, who has dominated the international development of novel software for radio astronomy over several years. ...read more

Toward becoming a postgraduate and Research-intensive university

“It is our intention to focus on growing the proportion of our postgraduate students from 27% to 30% in the coming years. The Sandisa Imbewu Fund supports this intention.” - Vice-Chancellor, Rhodes University, Dr Saleem Badat

Judged in terms of key performance indicators, Rhodes University is one of South Africa and Africa’s outstanding universities with a proud reputation as a ‘Scholarly University’.
...read more

Why we need leadership

RECENTLY, Reuel Khoza of Nedbank remarked on the “emergence of a strange breed of leaders” whose “moral quotient is degenerating”. He raised concern about whether we have an accountable democracy and said that we have a duty to call to book leaders who cannot lead.
If this is so, the new Allan Gray Centre for Leadership Ethics at Rhodes University, whose slogan is “Where leaders learn”, is timely. ...read more

We've lost one of our best

I DEAL with grief, shame and anger in the quiet of my study, in solitude and with words. These are my words for Lelona Thembakazi Fufu. Born: Christmas Day, 1988. Died: April 12 2012. Age: 23. Usually, remembrance of a student is through the pleasure of supporting a scholarship or job application. In the case of Lelona, biography and achievements would have combined to make remembrance especially joyous, fulfilling and pleasurable. ...read more

Understanding the ethics of leadership

Recently Reuel Khoza of Nedbank remarked on the “emergence of a strange breed of leaders” whose “moral quotient is degenerating”. He voiced concern about whether we have an “accountable democracy”, and said that “we have a duty to call to book leaders who cannot lead”. ...read more

We can't take a wrong turn with rights

THE year 1994 was a revolutionary breakthrough. Racial oligarchy, brutal oppression and repression finally gave way to a democracy in which all South Africans were accorded full citizenship rights. Critical to this development was the imagination and courage we displayed to rid ourselves of tyranny and to forge a constitution and Bill of Rights that held out the promise of far-reaching political, economic and social reform. We looked forward to the promise of the progressive realisation of hard-won citizenship rights so we could live productive, rich, rewarding and secure lives. ...read more

We are not free, only free to start

If we are our race before our nationality we create a new apartheid. And if we chain ourselves to materialism and others to poverty we are all slaves of a kind, writes Saleem Badat. ...read more

Everyone has potential to be a leader’ Dr Saleem Badat

RHODES University Vice-Chancellor Dr Saleem Badat says people need to move away from the ‘big man’ syndrome and begin to question their leadership. ...read more

Saso, mass black organisation committed to liberation

In both scholarly and popular literature, black students in South Africa have tended to be treated in two ways: simply as victims of apartheid in appalling education conditions, or as catalysts of educational and political struggle through their campaigns. Yet their role as activists has seldom been analysed. ...read more

It's up to us all to see we get the leaders we need - Saleem Badat

REUEL Khoza of Nedbank recently remarked on the "emergence of a strange breed of leaders" whose "moral quotient is degenerating". He raised the concern whether we have an "accountable democracy" and said that "we have a duty to call to book leaders who cannot lead". ...read more

An Open Letter to Mr. Mzoleli Mrara

Dear Honourable Mr. Mzoleli Mrara, ANC member of the Eastern Cape legislature and chairperson of the Education Portfolio Committee. ...read more

Information Bill changes welcome but more needed

Rhodes University welcomes the changes agreed upon by the ANC on June 24 in deliberations by an ad-hoc committee of Parliament regarding the Protection of Information Bill. ...read more

Communiqué on Outcome of Rape Trial

Four years ago when I became Vice-Chancellor I committed myself to making Rhodes a home for all – a place where all people are treated with respect, dignity, compassion, and enjoy safety and security. ...read more

Making intellectual space

There is a death of intellectual spaces in South Africa for sustained scholarly debate on critical issues in higher education. ...read more

Exclusion Of Students

In a communication to the Rhodes community yesterday (Friday) it was reported that three students who appeared before the University Proctor were, on Wednesday 10 March 2010, found guilty on disciplinary charges of assault with intent to do grievous bodily harm to an off-duty CPU Officer, and attempted malicious damage to property. ...read more

Schooling: Failures, challenges – Dr Saleem Badat

WE CONTINUE to be plagued by stubborn realities that prevent the achievement of constitutionally and legally enshrined educational imperatives and goals. We need to honestly and openly acknowledge failings and shortcomings and what accounts for these, and creatively and courageously confront them. ...read more

Rich ideas for education needed

WE INHERITED an education system powerfully shaped by race, class, gender, institutional, and geographical inequalities. Recognising this, our Constitution declared the right of all “to a basic education”. It also committed us to the values of human dignity, the achievement of equality, and the advancement of non- sexism and non-racialism and the human rights and freedoms that the Bill of Rights proclaims. ...read more

A Call to Act Against Racism and Racial Abuse

Following the circular I issued yesterday regarding the racial abuse of Prof. Fackson Banda, I am enormously heartened by the positive response I have received from concerned members of the Rhodes community. ...read more

Rhodes says sorry for role in apartheid

An outstanding graduate has observed that at Rhodes University we need "a critical appreciation of where we come from, (and) a dialogical and analytic engagement with where we are now". ...read more

Is citizen journalism a movement for good?

If Grassroots newspaper was an expression of citizen journalism, then it was ironical that many of those producing it were themselves non-citizens of apartheid South Africa, Dr Saleem Badat told the opening session of Highway Africa today. ...read more

Return to critical scholarship

Intellectuals, public officials, business and civil-society leaders and political commentators have complained about South African universities' lack of "visibility". For some, universities have not addressed the myriad economic and social-development challenges the country faces. ...read more

Sasco has vital role to play in changing higher education

It is more difficult now to organise students in politics than during apartheid, argues SALEEM BADAT ...read more

The Forgotten People: Banishment under Apartheid: a text and photographic exhibition

Constitution Hill is a beacon for Constitutionalism, Human Rights and Democracy and is dedicated to remembering past struggles by hosting exhibitions that play an important educational role in expressing these values and true to its nature. ...read more

Untold stories to be told at exhibition

There are many untold stories about South Africa that have not been documented but an exhibition at Constitution Hill will give voice to those untold stories. ...read more

The Forgotten People

Arriving at Constitution Hill last Thursday evening, I found myself empathising with whoever is charged with taking care of the place. Mirror neuron, the effect is called. ...read more