Cape Town – Students and lecturers have criticised a motion of no confidence tabled against UCT vice-chancellor Max Price, saying it has been brought by conservative, right wing elements and could scupper progress made at the institution.
The motion was tabled on Friday by Emeritus Professor Timothy Crowe and UCT’s convocation will vote on December 15.
Former UCT Student Representative Council president and the chief operating officer at the South African Institute of Race Relations, Gwen Ngwenya, who was part of the tabling of the vote, said the “straw that broke the camel’s back” was the November 6 agreement reached by the executive with the Shackville TRC to form an Institutional Reconciliation and Transformation Commission (IRTC)/Shackville TRC.
“The motion follows a series of decisions by the executive, grounded in the appeasement of student lawbreakers and ideologues who have not been able to articulate their philosophy in any manner as to result in its common comprehension,” Ngwenya said.
Student activist Simon Rakei said the student movement would do what was tactically best to ensure the gains made in decolonising the university were secured, especially regarding the recent agreement.
“Beyond the vote of no confidence, this from my view is also an attack on Fallism and what it has come to represent in lieu with how Max Price has responded to it,” he said.
“This is essentially the right wing and conservative block of the university rebelling.”
He said it was immaterial to an extent who the vice-chancellor was, as UCT was an anti-black anti-poor institution. “Having a more conservative leader will only reveal its true colours. Max Price is still a liberal anti-black VC and so is the university. The vice-chancellor and this university have continuously failed to decolonise the university and make it socially and contextually relevant as an African university capable of addressing issues of social justice for the people of this continent
“There are many things which warrant the VC’s vote of no confidence, but none of those reasons are driving this particular vote,” he said.
UCT lecturer and Black Academic Caucus member Adam Haupt said the vote was not warranted, but was a “conservative backlash”.
Haupt said negotiations would need mutual compromise, and that Price and the students should be given credit for their efforts to engage and come up with solutions.
“Gains come from concessions on both sides,” he said.
He said colleagues who had criticised Price had failed to engage with protesting students and their issues.
Graduates and all holders of diplomas and certificates of the university; the vice-chancellor, the deputy vice-chancellors and the academic staff; and former professors and associate professors elected by the senate to be emeritus professors or emeritus associate professors will be able to vote.