Vice Chancellor Njabulo Ndebele and Deputy Vice-Chancellor Thandabantu Nhlapo of the University of Cape Town share their perspectives on higher education in South Africa.

Monday, May 14, 2007
3:00 PM - 5:00 PM
314 Royce Hall
UCLA Campus
Los Angeles, CA 90095

Professor Njabulo Ndebele began his term of office as Vice-Chancellor and Principal of the University of Cape Town in 2000, following tenure as resident scholar at the Ford Foundation's headquarters in New York. He joined the Foundation in 1998 after a five-year term of office as Vice-Chancellor and Principal of the University of the North in Sovenga. Previously, he had served as vice-rector of the University of the Western Cape. Earlier positions include chair of the Department of African Literature at the University of the Witwatersrand, and provost, dean, and head of the English department at the National University of Lesotho. He has a BA from the University of Botswana, Lesotho and Swaziland; bachelor's and master's degrees from Cambridge University in the United Kingdom; and a PhD from the University of Denver. Ndebele is the author of poetry that has appeared in many anthologies, and several volumes of fiction, including Bonolo and the Peach Tree and Fools and Other Stories, a chronicle of life in a black township under apartheid. His highly influential critical essays were published in a collection called South African Literature and Culture: Rediscovery of the Ordinary. His work has been published in literary and scholarly journals and anthologies in South Africa, the United States, and Europe. His writing awards include the Noma award for publishing in Africa, the SANLAM first prize for outstanding fiction, and the Pringle and Mofolo-Plomer awards.

Professor Thandabantu Nhlapo rejoined University of Cape Town as a Deputy Vice-Chancellor in 2004 from the South African Embassy in Washington DC, where he was the Deputy Chief of Mission. Previously, he was a member of the Law Faculty at UCT from 1990, achieving the rank of Professor in the Department of Private Law and Head of Department from 1994, before his appointment to the South African Law Commission, where he served from 1996 to 2000. Professor Nhlapo obtained his BA (Law) at the University of Botswana, Lesotho and Swaziland, and then went on to receive an LLB (Hons) from the University of Glasgow, and a DPhil from Oxford University in the UK. During his tenure in the Law Faculty at UCT he taught the law of persons, family law and African customary law and was promoted to full professorship in 1995. Prior to joining UCT, he was dean of the social science faculty at the University of Swaziland. While working for the South African Law Commission he chaired the project committee on customary law which produced a report on customary marriages, resulting in the Recognition of Customary Marriages Act passed by Parliament in 1998. Recently, he was appointed to chair a national commission to investigate disputes and claims arising in the traditional leadership sector.

Parking is available in lot 5 for $8.

Cost : Free and open to the public

www.international.ucla.edu/africa

Sponsor(s): African Studies Center, Comparative Literature