While the Mpati Report provides important recommendations on the roles of university councils, it is largely silent on a second aspect of university governance that also contributed to the leadership crisis: the shift from collegial to managerial forms of governance within the university.
The report released this week by an independent panel investigating governance failures at UCT in recent years excoriates former vice-chancellor Mamokgethi Phakeng. It paints a picture of a narcissistic and thin-skinned leader who exploited and encouraged racial divisions – talking up a narrati.
Outgoing University of Cape Town vice-chancellor Mamokgethi Phakeng used some of her final hours in her position to sit down for an extraordinary interview on JJ Tabane’s ‘Power to Truth’ show on eNCA on Wednesday evening. Here we fact-check Phakeng’s claims – including that Daily Maverick is g.
The problem with victim narrative is not only that it allows Phakeng to use her positionality to evade responsibility for her own problematic behaviours, but also that it renders those who have suffered her abuse invisible, writes Malaika Mahlatsi.
The author of 'The Fall of the University of Cape Town', Professor David Benatar, writes that the problem at the university runs much deeper than the vice-chancellor, who is at least as much a symptom of UCT's fall as its cause.