JONATHAN JANSEN | You can’t go wrong with a university rector who admits error

With the leadership of higher education unravelling around the country, this past week the Stellenbosch University (SU) council offered South Africa a masterclass in how to govern our treasured institutions.

Until now I have not commented about the goings-on at my university not because I work there (my obligations as public thinker and writer outweigh my employment status) but because I am called in by the executive from time to time to advise on one or other policy; it would obviously be unwise to advise on the university’s direction and then lambaste its leaders in public for its choices.

In such a situation, there are other ways of telling the truth. I write now because the council investigation has been completed.

The back story has been well-covered by the media. Our vice-chancellor (rector, in the old Afrikaans universities) was alleged to have offered places in the medical school to the children of relatives. Under the rector’s discretion policy, he was deemed to have authority to offer admission to students who did not make it the first time round. The problem, of course, was that these were family members.

I have no doubt that such an admission would have panicked his lawyers, but he was doing something that no other vice-chancellor had done from the outset: to admit error.

When the facts became known, a veritable circus ensued. The then convocation (mainly alumni) leadership went on a familiar tirade against the rector demanding that he resign and presented to the council a vote of no-confidence in the university leader.

At this point it became clear to many alumni that these mainly white, conservative men had been on a mission for years to upend this and previous rectors who had sold out the Afrikaner cultural estate, which had as its most precious possession the Afrikaans language. So a special meeting of convocation was called at which these perpetually angry men were, to use a local idiom, booted into touch.

The SU council, under the able baton of Nicky Newton-King (the first woman CEO of the Johannesburg Stock Exchange) proceeded calmly to do its work.

It swiftly established a committee of three women led by former judge Carole Lewis, to investigate the allegations of nepotism.

It made public the report which concluded that the rector did not break any institutional rules but that he had acted unethically.

Council then ruled that there would be consequences for the leader’s decisions that included financial penalty apart from this very public form of censure.

Then something remarkable happened. Even before the formal inquiry, the rector made an announcement that he had committed “a regrettable error of judgment”. I have no doubt that such an admission would have panicked his lawyers, but he was doing something that no other vice-chancellor had done from the outset: to admit error. In response, Newton-King announced that “council accepted and appreciated the rector’s unconditional apology for his error of judgment ...”

Let’s unpack all of this. Vice-chancellors do not apologise, even in the face of overwhelming evidence against them; they go kicking and screaming out the door. Councils typically cover up problems or drag their feet on resolving leadership problems. Swift and thorough investigations seldom happen in the public sector, whether it be errant government leaders or rogue university heads. And governing authorities often lack the wisdom expressed by the Newton-King council in balancing firmness (the rector was disciplined) with fairness (the rector was retained).

There is a much bigger story that comes out of the SU saga. It is a reminder that all of us as leaders have feet of clay. I can fill my favourite moleskin notebook with all the mistakes I have made as a leader. It comes with the territory. When you try to do things differently as a leader, you will stumble. When you reach leadership heights in your career, you can become arrogant and hurt underlings in the process. When faced with difficult dilemmas in public life, you might genuinely not know the difference between good and bad choices except in retrospect. When rushed and exhausted in your 18-hour day as a leader, you can so easily slip up in making a decision that required much more time in the moral microwave.

The vital difference in the SU saga, and one that offers a lesson for the country, is how leaders responded to the crisis. The competent action of council leadership and the concessionary posture of a humbled leader. It is that combination of qualities that on the one hand prevented SU’s public reputation from being sullied for months and years on end, and on the other ensures the university lands on its academic feet.

In the background to all these developments two stubborn facts stand out. One, that Stellenbosch has risen by 171 points in the recent QS World University Rankings, catapulting itself to one among the top 300 universities in the world. Two, that the current rector has raised R2,532,454,273 in private philanthropy alone, 40% more than the two former vice-chancellors combined and in half the time.

Those are good reasons for retaining a university leader.