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A dinner of echos in the chambers of South Africa. The UNISA Dinner

  I was invited to a dinner with UNISA's Vice-Chancellor and Principal, Professor Puleng LenkaBula. This was, I suppose, one of the stakeholder engagement processes she had embarked upon to introduce herself-in-the-office to various establishments that may or will be critical to the success or otherwise of her tenure at UNISA. The line-up of guests that were 'physically' at the dinner represented a cohort of business leaders who, and I was amongst them, dubbed as being captains of industry.

Stakeholder engagement theory wisens that a coterie of individuals found at such dinners define the approval networks that a leadership tenure or cause enjoys in society. The 'physical' absence of the 'strategic' in the 'governance' architecture of UNISA, and those that have natural proximity to South Africa's political-economic establishment was to me notably worrisome. The stature that UNISA projects as an African University would have, or should have, attracted to the dinner the core substrate of South Africa's industrialists and financial services moguls. 

 

The node of influence it has as social capital in the person of its Chancellor, the alumni that include former Justice Dikgang Moseneke and a sitting President of the Republic, Cyril Ramaphosa should have defined the inaugural business dinner as a Social Cohesion event without which the future of UNISA would have a doubtful relationship with posterity. The absence of 'Stellenbosch's', 'Dube Port Complex' as well as the 'Sandton Network' physical representation at the dinner, and if they were not in the virtual, is an echo of sound in chambers the Deputy Vice-Chancellor and her office team need to found ways of quietening or listening to.

 

Without pronouncing the merits or otherwise of the Afrikaans case with Solidarity, there is an Afrikaans concept called 'swaai gat om' that might be at play in the relationship of UNISA with the Afrikaans establishment. This requires strategies to 're-swaai certain gats' without succumbing to the 'anti-transformation' sub-texts the Afri-Forum language Court victory might be carrying along. The cultural battle is primal to any ideational transformation of society, contestations in that space is a sure indicator of how stable and cohesive society’s imagination of itself is, the new UNISA VC is a key player to ignore sounds interior to this.

 

In her speech, the new VC could not have vindicated the decision of UNISA's Council in making a choice to appoint her. She came across as an institution of leadership herself. Her strategic and ideological vision of what UNISA is to Africa, and South Africa, was presented in a way that you could only be worried about who else should have heard her beyond those that were tuned in. It was interesting to note her silence to the shenanigans that are making rounds about UNISA, but rather to hear her loudness on what the 'institution' was knitted for as a platform upon which she has chosen to navigate recommendations of reports whence from negative reporting originates. 

 

Overall, the dinner was a refreshing experience, the speeches that were made represented a shift from 'diatribes' of transformation, and the ushering in of what should be done. In the parlance of Mandla Letlape in his book 'Dream Delivered', the speech of the Vice-Chancellor represented the arrival of leadership in UNISA that understands the truism of a 'dream delivered' by the institutional frameworks created in our political of South Africa. 

 

The Thinc Foundation expresses its appreciation for being invited to be interior to the unfolding stakeholder engagement process. Within what we can muster, and in support of our common vision as a society to build a united and democratic South Africa able to take its rightful place as a sovereign state.

 

We commit to being a stakeholder in this journey. Again, congratulations to UNISA for the VC they have found for themselves. As Meta Mhlari said, 'she is a she that will take UNISA to new levels'. 

Cut!!!

🤷🏽‍♂️A ndzo ti vulavulela


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