Ballot goes against new name for Rhodes
Financial concerns cited among reasons for council members’ vote
RHODES University will not be changing its name, following a secret ballot in which 15 council members voted against the name change and nine for it. The decision – taken six months after Rhodes held a transformation summit to discuss various issues, including changing the 113-year-old institution’s name – was announced yesterday.
Rhodes and its council said in a joint statement that a number of challenges had been considered leading up to the November 30 vote, including major financial concerns the university has faced since the start of the #FeesMustFall movement in 2015.
“In 2015, the council initiated a process to advance transformation at the university and to solicit views of all stakeholders on the future of its name,” they said.
Detailing eight specific challenges in addressing issues of transformation at Rhodes, the university and council said it would not be financially sustainable to change Rhodes’ name.
“Since the issue of the name of the university came to the fore in 2015, strong views have been expressed in support of, and in opposition to, its retention,” they said.
Concerns over staff remuneration and retention, employment equity, student financial aid, infrastructure and institutional culture were the main topics during the transformation summit and were discussed by the council with regard to the name change.
Addressing these points, and the continued call for transformation, Rhodes and its council said they believed any inroads made regarding the transformation process would be viewed as incomplete by “some members of the Rhodes University community and public” should the institution not change its name.
On November 30, 24 members of the council who were eligible to vote on the name change had cast their ballots.
Nine votes were in favour of the change while 15 were against.
“This has been a difficult decision to make and, regardless of the results of the ballot, there are no winners from this process,” the statement said. Rhodes and its council said it was not in the financial interests of the university to rename it due to the limited resources available.
“It would not be prudent to rename the university and invest significant financial and other resources in a major international rebranding project with limited, if any, guarantee that the identity and reputation that has drawn learners and leading scholars from South Africa, the African continent and across the globe to our university would, at the very least, remain recognisable.”
The council also said that Cecil John Rhodes‚ after whom the university was named‚ had been an arch-imperialist and white supremacist and there was not much to celebrate about him and the way he went about doing things.
However, Rhodes University had‚ over more than a century‚ developed a unique identity of its own which was separate from, and far transcended, the person.
The Rhodes Student Representative Council had not responded to requests for comment by the time of going to print.
Regardless of the results of the ballot, there are no winners