The University of Cape Town (UCT) on Monday confirmed the appointment of an interim vice-chancellor in the wake of a fallout with Prof Mamokgethi Phakeng, who took an early retirement package of about R12m.
Council chair Babalwa Ngonyama said the council was “pleased to announce the appointment of Emeritus Professor Daya Reddy as the interim vice-chancellor”.
She said the decision was made on March 6 at a special council meeting, after consultation with the senate and on advice from the institutional forum a few days before.
Reddy will officially assume duty on Tuesday and remain in the position until a new vice-chancellor is appointed.
He has served in various management and leadership positions at UCT: as a head of department, as dean of the faculty of science for seven years, and from 1999 to 2021 as director of the centre for research in computational and applied mechanics.
This comes in the wake of a tumultuous week at the institution in which protesting students chanted and made fires on lower campus, with police brought in to beef up security.
After Phakeng’s departure, she used social media and public television to tell her side of the story while the university council went quiet regarding putting forward its side.
William Bird, head of Media Monitoring Africa, said a poor communications strategy had been evident at the institution in the face of a public battle.
“Especially regarding a communications strategy that addresses crisis communications, this was a poor strategy.
“It's easy when things are fine, but when there is a real threat or internal crisis the whole thing goes to hell and the ability of the communications is done on an urgent and often unthought-out basis,” he said.
No longer tethered to the official line of the institution since her departure, Phakeng has, in the words of a staff member who wanted to remain anonymous, “continued to troll the University of Cape Town”.
It was “about time” a public announcement was made about the decision reached at last week’s council meeting, he said.
A student said: “It is weird to be at a place of learning where the person who was running the show weeks ago is now putting out such a negative picture of that place.”
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