Women head UCT’s top leadership staff
ALL four UCT leaders in charge of the university at the highest level are women.
This follows the announcement by the university that Professor Sue Harrison had been appointed as deputy vice-chancellor for Research and Internationalisation and she would start on August 1.
Welcoming Harrison to the leadership, Vice-Chancellor Rosina Mamokgethi Phakeng said the fact that all four executive leaders of the academic enterprise were women marked a significant milestone in academia and leadership positions in South Africa and globally.
“This is a significant moment for women in academia and leadership positions, both in our society and across the world.
“We are delighted that the UCT Council has placed their confidence in the experience and expertise of each of my executive colleagues,” Phakeng said.
Harrison will take over from Professor Kevin Naidoo, who has been acting in the position since the beginning of the year.
She holds the South African Research Chairs Initiative Chair in Bioprocess Engineering, and is the director of both the Centre for Bioprocess Engineering Research and the Future Water research institute at UCT.
Her history at the university started when she obtained a BSc in chemistry and microbiology and her honours in microbiology at the institution, and she went on to complete her doctoral studies in the field of chemical engineering at Cambridge University in 1990.
Harrison has worked within the bioprocess engineering sub-discipline of chemical engineering for about 30 years.
In addition to Phakeng, the other two women are deputy vice-chancellor for Transformation Professor Loretta Feris, and deputy vice-chancellor for Teaching and Learning Associate Professor Lis Lange.
Phakeng was Harrison’s predecessor until she took over from Max Price in July last year, and had previously served as deputy vice-chancellor for Research and Internationalisation since January 2017, and is a former vice-principal for Research and Innovation at Unisa.
Feris began her role in January, 2017, and is a former director of the Institute for Marine and Environmental Law in the Faculty of Law, having joined UCT as an associate professor in 2009.
Lange began her term of office in February last year. She joined UCT from the University of the Free State (UFS), where she has held the same position.
Before that she headed UFS’s Institutional and Academic Planning and Research Department.