'The ideal of the university is under threat,' Jonathan Jansen warns students at UCT graduation ceremony
Former Vice Chancellor of the University of the Free State Professor Jonathan Jansen has warned graduating students that the "ideal of the university is under threat".
"I would be remiss on this grand occasion if I did not warn you that in South Africa today, that ideal of the university is under threat," he told students during the University of Cape Town's graduation ceremony on Friday.
"When you burn down things at a university because you're angry, you undermine what a university is for. When you hide and conceal artworks you don't like, you threaten the idea of a university. When you tell white students and colleagues that they cannot speak in the learning commons, you make a mockery of what a university stands for," he added as he cited instances that he said placed the ideal of a university under threat.
Jansen was speaking at the third ceremony of the last graduation season of 2019 for the faculty of humanities, which took place in the newly named Sarah Baartman Hall, and saw close to 400 graduates capped.
Jansen further cautioned that when you refuse to meet with and engage your academic colleagues "because they hold different views from you", or are "critical of your work", then you diminish the very idea of a university.