The vice-chancellor announced he will be heading to SOAS next year
In September 2012, when talk first began circulating of the possibility of Professor Adam Habib becoming the vice-chancellor of the University of Witwatersrand, he brushed it off as rumour.
Calm and confident, Habib told students, administrative staff and academics that he would not be able to make the institution’s problems disappear by himself. He appeared even then, to understand the importance of reaching beyond his office to build a consensus to drive the university forward. But it is Habib’s experience in weathering a particularly turbulent time at Wits that is said to have tipped the scales in his favour for the SOAS job. Alongside Max Price, the former vice-chancellor of the University of Cape Town, and Blade Nzimande, the minister for higher education and training as the ministry was then known, Habib became the focus of the ire of #FeesMustFall protesters.
Scenes of him sitting on the floor of what was then known as Senate House, surrounded by students late at night, became emblematic of the tussle between students and management to be heard, but to listen too. But it was not president Jacob Zuma as the ultimate authority on the matter who had to face the rage of the students, or their playfully insulting banners and demands for immediate change. Though Nzimande continues to be reviled for his handling of the protests, even inviting this week a swipe by Julius Malema in Parliament as being the “most useless minister”, it was up to university managers, such as Habib, to forge a way forward in the searing heat of anger and mistrust.
Wits student representative council president Thuto Kgabaphethe told the M&G this week that if there is one thing the student body will never agree with Habib on, it was criminalising a just cause. Habib says there might have been difficult times during his tenure, but if his leadership must be judged it must be on what he has been able to achieve, with the help of the university community.
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