News24 reports that the University of Cape Town (UCT) is expected to appoint retired mathematics professor, Daya Reddy, as its interim vice-chancellor following the dramatic exit of Professor Mamokgethi Phakeng.
None of the university’s three deputy vice-chancellors are apparently in the running to take over Phakeng's position on an interim basis. Reddy will likely be appointed when the council convenes next week and is expected to serve a term of about six months while the recruitment of a new vice-chancellor is undertkaen. Reddy, who retired in 2020 from the university, was a professor in the Department of Mathematics and Applied Mathematics and the director of UCT’s Centre for Research in Computational and Applied Mechanics. Phakeng was placed on special leave with immediate effect on Wednesday. It followed the leaking of a confidential letter to the university's executive on Monday, in which she confirmed she was leaving UCT on Friday and described the past 10 months as having been "untenable". She wrote the letter days before her departure as vice-chancellor after reaching a negotiated R12.5 million exit deal with the council last week. In an hour long interview on Wednesday evening on eNCA, Phakeng hailed herself as a "change maker" and said she rattled the cage of discriminators.
- Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Marvin Charles & Adriaan Basson at News24 (subscriber access only)
- Read too, ‘I’m a change maker, I rattled cages of racial discrimination’, Mamokgethi Phakeng says after leaving UCT, at IOL
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