University of Pretoria people welcoming, exciting - Kupe
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PROFESSOR Tawana Kupe has completed his first month as vice-chancellor and principal of the University of Pretoria. African News Agency (ANA) Archives PROFESSOR Tawana Kupe has completed his first month as vice-chancellor and principal of the University of Pretoria. African News Agency (ANA) Archives
Pretoria - Professor Tawana Kupe has just completed his first month as vice-chancellor and principal of the University of Pretoria (UP, Tuks) - and has enjoyed every minute in his new role.
Kupe said the first month had been “welcoming and exciting”.
“I find people here to be very warm and welcoming. They are excited about the vision I am outlining. The vision is to ensure that UP is always focused as it has been in the last 111 years on excellence and change,” he said.
Although Kupe has only been at the university for just over a month, he said they had already had issues on which they were working together with members of the SRC.
He said: “We have had a small factor here at the university, but nothing as major like the disruptions that have happened at other universities. We know that students have challenges with registration and accommodation.
“Our approach was taken with the SRC and other student formations to find solutions to the problems and work together to resolve them,” Kupe said.
Among measures taken to address the issues, he said, students requested an extension for the registration period to enable management to find solutions for those who could not register due to historic debt.
As such, registration was extended for another week, he said.
“This is one of the ways through which we try to work together to resolve issues so that they do not lead to situations where students are so frustrated that they feel that the only way to do things is to shutdown.”
He said the lack of communication between students and management was a contributor to disruptions.
Other than that, Kupe said he was looking forward to attending the Global Editors meeting on March 11, and his inauguration as vice-chancellor and principal on March 23.
“The Global Editors of The Conversation will be meeting in South Africa this year, and they chose to meet UP’s Future Africa Institute. They have asked me to give a keynote address on fake news and science reporting,” he said.
The Conversation is an independent source of news and views, sourced from the academic and research community and delivered direct to the public.
On March 29, he said they would be launching the Future Africa Institute, which aimed to address challenges facing Africa, and find ways to network and learn on how to raise money for research. He said this was an exciting mini convention centre.
Kupe said he was looking forward to his inauguration ceremony as it would be an opportunity to share with the public the knowledge that originated at UP and the changes that people were not aware of and also the vision of the future of the university.