UCT Awards Nine Honorary Degrees This Year
A paediatrician, actors and activists, an educationist, a photographer, a human rights jurist and former politicians - all of whom have garnered international renown - are among those who will be honoured by the University of Cape Town during graduation ceremonies this year.
Former Reserve Bank Governor Tito Mboweni will be awarded an honorary D Econ Sc at a graduation ceremony at 3pm on Thursday, June 3. Professor Jerry Coovadia will be awarded the degree of DSc (Med) (honoris causa) at a graduation ceremony at 10am on Friday, June 4. At the same graduation ceremony, photographer Peter Magubane will receive a DLitt (honoris causa) and educationist Victor Ritchie an honorary DEd degree. Later in the day, unionist, academic and competition law specialist David Lewis will be awarded the degree of D Econ Sc (honoris causa).
At graduation ceremonies in December, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and South African Judge Navi Pillay will receive an LLD (honoris causa); acting greats Sir Anthony Sher and Janet Suzman will receive honorary DLitt degrees; and British politician Baroness Linda Chalker will receive the LLD (honoris causa).
Vice-Chancellor Dr Max Price says UCT's honorary degrees recognized outstanding contributions by extraordinary people.
"The nominees have made an impact far larger than most in their fields, going beyond the call of duty, affecting the lives of others, impacting society and providing a heritage that will stand for generations to come. We are proud to honour them in this way."
Tito Mboweni was born in 1959 and raised in Tzaneen. He enrolled for a Bachelor of Commerce degree at the University of the North in 1979 but in 1980 went into exile in Lesotho , where he obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics and Political Science from the National University of Lesotho in 1985. Two years later, he qualified with a Master of Arts degree in Development Economics from the University of East Anglia in the United Kingdom.
A strong ANC activist and leader, Mboweni served as the deputy head of the Department of Economic Policy in the ANC. He served as Chairperson of the National Executive Committee's Economic Transformation Committee which coordinated the development of the ANC's economic policies. In 1997, Mboweni was appointed as head of the ANC's Policy Department, which was responsible for managing ANC policy processes.
In May 1994 he was appointed the Minister of Labour in President Mandela's cabinet, a position he held until July 1998.
Upon joining the South African Reserve Bank as Advisor to the Governor in 1998, he resigned all of his elected and appointed positions in the ANC. Mboweni served as Governor of the South African Reserve Bank from 1999 to 2009.
Mboweni was also appointed one of the World Economic Forum's Global Leaders of Tomorrow in 1995.
He has contributed to ensuring stability in the transition to democracy and bringing about the prosperity we now experience.
Jerry Coovadia is a world-renowned leader in child health and disease and a leader in the struggle for a democratic South Africa. He is both a national and an international figure in paediatric medicine and a world authority in the field of HIV/AIDS.
He obtained his MBBS from the University of Bombay in 1965, followed by the College of Medicine examination in 1971(F.C.P.), an MSc from the University of Birmingham in 1974, and an MD from the University of Natal in 1978.
Coovadia was previously the head of the department of paediatrics and child health at the former University of Natal until 2000, then held the Victor Daitz Professorship for HIV/AIDS research and is currently Emeritus Professor of paediatrics and child health at the University of KwaZulu Natal; he has recently joined the University of the Witwatersrand in their Maternal, Adolescent and Child Health unit as a director of HIV Management.
He is internationally recognised for his revolutionary research in HIV/AIDS transmission from mother to child, particularly through breastfeeding.
He has dedicated himself to the development of research by supervising over 40 postgraduate students as well as teaching in the medical, nursing and allied health professions for over 20 years.
He chaired the 13th International Conference on AIDS held in Durban in 2000, and took a principled stand in challenging the Mbeki government's policy on AIDS.
Professor Coovadia was awarded the Star of South Africa by former President Nelson Mandela for his contribution to democracy in South Africa. In 1999, he was awarded the Silver Medal by the Medical Research Council for his achievements in the field of medical research.
In 2004, he was awarded the Science for Society Gold Medal by the Academy of Science of South Africa for his achievements in the field of medical science, and has been appointed as a Commissioner in the newly formed National Planning Commission in the Presidency.
Peter Magubane photographed the unfolding story of South Africa's liberation over a period of 50 years. His work has appeared in newspaper and books and has been exhibited globally.
Magubane grew up in Sophiatown, taking his first photographs with a Brownie camera as a schoolboy. He started working at Drum Magazine as a driver and messenger, but was trained as a darkroom assistant and later assigned to cover the 1955 ANC convention in Bloemfontein. He went on to cover many important political events of the 1950s, including the treason trials and demonstrations against the pass laws.
Magubane joined the Rand Daily Mail in 1967 and was arrested two years later while photographing protestors outside Winnie Mandela's jail cell. He was later banned from taking any photographs for five years. In March 1971 he was arrested again and spent 98 days in solitary confinement, followed by a regular jail term of six months. When the banning order was lifted he resumed work for the Rand Daily Mail, documenting the Soweto student uprisings from June through to August of 1976 and being arrested again shortly thereafter.
Coverage of the uprisings earned him worldwide acclaim and led to international photographic and journalistic awards, one of which was the American National Professional Photographers Association Humanistic Award in 1986, in recognition of one of several incidents in which he put his camera aside and intervened to prevent people from being killed. He also received the Martin Luther King Luthuli Award, the Mother Jones - Leica Lifetime Achievement Award and the Order for Meritorious Service from President Mandela. He was awarded honorary fellowship by the Royal Photographic Society.
Magubane now documents surviving traditional communities in post-apartheid South Africa.
Victor Ritchie played a principled role as an educator and leader who successfully resisted the imposition of racially segregated and inferior education during the apartheid era.
Born in Kimberley in 1930, he attended UCT where he obtained his BSc degree majoring in Maths, Chemistry and Physics in 1950, and a Secondary Teaching Certificate in 1951.
He began a teaching career of 33 years at Harold Cressy High School in 1952 (known then as Cape Town Secondary and housed in three classrooms on the Hewat Training College premises).
Despite the basic physical facilities, Ritchie and his colleagues - working closely with parents and students - promoted principles, values and educational practices that were critical in establishing the school as a "professional learning centre". These included cultivating a culture of teaching and learning in the school, while strenuously rejecting racism, sexism, social inequalities based on wealth, over-rated competitiveness and individualism.
He was formally appointed principal in 1969.
Under his leadership, Harold Cressy High School became a premier high school for people of colour, and an outstanding school by any definition. It also became one of the most important feeder schools to UCT, and more deliberately so when the University of the Western Cape was established as a university for people classified as "coloured". He ensured his pupils received the very best education, and that they not be destined for an institution constructed by race.
The school was faced with the threat of closure through the Group Areas Act, and it was due to his leadership that the school resisted its removal from District Six and today stands as a landmark and reminder of what was lost with the destruction of District Six. It's physical survival is also symbolic of the school's success in withstanding and counteracting the unrelenting onslaught and debilitating effects of a government system intent on controlling the lives and minds of students and teachers.
In 1985, during one of many student uprisings spanning its history, Harold Cressy High took a principled stand that formal lessons were replaced by political-awareness classes. The chairperson of the Parent, Teachers' and Students' Association and two teachers were jailed, while Ritchie and six senior teachers were suspended without pay. The school body decided unanimously not to write the final exams but to repeat the academic year in 1986.
Ritchie retired as principal in 1991, but shortly thereafter continued his teaching activity through a series of community service initiatives including a mathematics school for under-achieving matriculants.
David Lewis, unionist and academic, graduated from the University of the Witwatersrand with a BCom in 1970 before coming to UCT where he graduated with a BA (Hons) in economics in 1972 and an MA in economics in 1974.
His life's work has focused on serving to uplift the poor and marginalized, addressing social issues and broad-based economic development.
Lewis served as general-secretary of the General Workers Union between 1975 and 1985, and then as national organizer of the goods transport section of the Transport and General Workers Union until 1990.
He worked as an academic at UCT from 1990 to 2000, teaching and publishing with distinction. He was a founder and director of the Development Policy Research Unit - a major research unit that still continues at UCT - and a director of the Industrial Strategy Project - one of the largest research endeavours housed at UCT and with a great influence on government policy post 1994.
Lewis was adviser to then Minister of Labour Tito Mboweni from 1994 to 1996; an adviser to the National Economic Development and Labour Council (NEDLAC): a National Research Foundation board member from 1999 to 2002; co-chair of the Presidential Commission of Enquiry into Labour Market Policy; and board member of the Industrial Development Corporation from 1995 to 2009.
He served as a member of the task team formulating the new competition law between 1996 and 1999, and a member of the Competition Board from 1996 to 1999. From 1999 to 2009, he chaired the Competitions Tribunal and at the end of his term, was appointed a professor at the Gordon Institute of Business Science. He was a member of the World Trade Organization working group on the interaction between trade and competitions policy, and vice-chair and chairperson of the steering group of the International Competition Network. Lewis also serves on the boards of the Johannesburg Development Agency and South African Airways.
Sir Antony Sher was born and raised in South Africa, before going to London to study at the Webber-Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art between 1969 and 1971.
For a while he performed with the Gay Sweatshop theatre group, before joining the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1982. His performance in the title role of Richard III in 1984 was crowned with an Olivier Award for Best Actor, and in 1997 he won another Olivier Award for Stanley.
His acting success extends also to film - including performances as Disraeli in Mrs Brown and chief weasel in The Wind in the Willows. His television work includes The History Man (1981) and The Jury (2002).
He has also written extensively, both fiction and non-fiction. His books include his memoirs Woza Shakespeare: Titus Andronicus in Africa (1997), Year of the King (1985), Characters (1990) Beside Myself (2002), Primo Time (2005), and a number of novels. His plays include ID (2003), Primo (2004) and The Giant (2008).
His links with South Africa remain strong, directing at the Baxter, presenting master classes and writing on gay identity, so creating a learning opportunity for others.
In 2005 he directed Breakfast with Mugabe, and in 2007 he produced the Channel 4 crime documentary Murder most Foul which chronicles the Cape Town murder of Brett Golden and Richard Bloom.
Sher has been widely honoured for his contributions as actor, writer and director.
Judge Navi Pillay was the first woman to open her own law practice in Natal, and the first black woman and the first attorney to be appointed an acting judge of the High Court of South Africa.
Born in Durban, the daughter of a bus driver, she went to the University of Natal where she graduated with a BA in 1963 and with a LLB in 1965. In 1982, she obtained a Master of Law and in 1988 a Doctor of Juridical Science from Harvard University. She practised as an attorney since 1967, defending many anti-apartheid activists and trade unionists.
Among her precedent-setting achievements were judgments exposing the use of torture in the apartheid state, the debilitating effects of solitary confinement and, importantly, the winning of the right for Robben Island prisoners, including Nelson Mandela, to have access to legal representation.
In 1995 she was elected by the United Nations General Assembly as judge of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and led the court from 1999, setting significant international criminal law precedent, including the groundbreaking redefinition of rape as an act of genocide.
In February 2003, Judge Pillay was elected, as one of the 18 judges - and the only South African - of the newly-created International Criminal Court. In 2008 she became the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, an office she regards as "the voice of the victim everywhere".
Janet Suzman in a remarkable career, has distinguished herself as an actor and director in theatre, film and television.
Born in Johannesburg, she was educated at Kingsmead College and Wits University. She was an active voice against discrimination and as a student spoke out against the Extension of University Education Bill, which paved the way for the extension of apartheid into higher education. Following its promulgation into law in 1959 she left South Africa for England, where she studied acting at LAMDA, of which she is now vice-President.
In 1963, she joined the newly-formed Royal Shakespeare Company for their War of the Roses, and subsequently played many of the Shakespeare heroines. Her performance as Cleopatra in 1973 received rave reviews and is still regarded as the definitive performance of the role. She is passing on the baton, however, having recently directed Kim Cattrall in the role for The Liverpool Playhouse. More recently, in 2007, critics raved about her performance of Volumnia in Coriolanus, and noted that there were "too few stage performances from this fine actress", reflecting the ratio of male to female dramatic parts.
Her first role in film in the early 1970's was the Empress Alexandra of Russia in Nicholas and Alexandra for which she received Golden Globe and Academy Award Nominations as best actress. She has made many other films including Andre Brink's A Dry White Season, and the cult movie The Draughtsman's Contract. She has twice received London's prestigious Evening Standard Award for plays by Fugard and Chekhov.
She has always kept her links with South Africa and opened The Market Theatre in 1976 with The Death of Bessie Smith with John Kani and subsequently directed him in Othello there in 1987, treating it as a protest play.
In the 90's she directed The Good Woman of Sharkville there, and in 1987 rewrote The Cherry Orchard setting it in the Free State for Birmingham Rep. Her production of Hamlet for The Baxter Theatre was invited to open the RSC's prestigious Complete Works Festival in 2006, but scarred by the horrific murder of Brett Goldin playing Rosenkrantz.
Her most recent South African play, The Dream of the Dog which she helped develop with its author, Craig Higginson, opened at The Finborough Theatre, London in April this year and received rave reviews.
Baroness Linda Chalker, a British Conservative politician, was a Member of Parliament in the United Kingdom from 1974 to 1992. She became a life peer in 1992.
As a trustee of the University of Cape Town Trust in the United Kingdom, she has been very supportive of UCT over the years, by promoting support of needy black students.
Baroness Chalker founded the Chalker Foundation for Africa, which supports medical knowledge and training in Africa. She is chairman of the board of Medicines for Malaria Venture. She is the founder and chairman of Africa Matters Limited, and a founder board member of the Nelson Mandela Legacy Trust. Her support for development initiatives in Africa is widely recognised by African leaders: At the World Economic Forum meeting in Cape Town a few years ago, the African presidents applauded when one of them called her "Mama Africa".
Statement issued by the UCT Communication and Marketing Department, May 19 2010
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