How will varsity improvement be measured?

ALTHOUGH I have long believed – for politically incorrect reasons – that the name of Rhodes University should be changed, I was neither surprised nor sorry to read that a broad cross-section of alumni have recently voted against a name change. (“Alumni say ‘no’ to renaming Rhodes”, July 31).

The comments of the vice-chancellor, Dr Sizwe Mabizela, are interesting.

He talks of making Rhodes “even better”. All strength to his arm. In the opinion of many senior academics, the university’s standards have declined significantly and are continuing to do so. There is little or no evidence that this trend is about to be reversed.

In our climate of severely limited freedom of speech and a blizzard of political correctness, it is not possible to set out an honest and comprehensive argument on the matter.

But given the vice-chancellor’s reference to making the university “even better”, and in the teeth of endless claptrap about transformation, decolonisation, non-elitism and so on, we should perhaps ask what criteria will be brought to bear in assessing whether the university is improving.

The answer to such a question is by no means obvious, neither is it unimportant, but we should not expect any full, open and cogent discussion of the matter.

If we get any response at all it is likely to be more claptrap, evasions and window-dressing.

Sirion Robertson, Grahamstown