Board

Professor Elelwani Ramugondo

Professor Elelwani Ramugondo was recently appointed as Deputy Vice-Chancellor responsible for Transformation, Student Affairs and Social Responsiveness at the University of Cape Town (UCT). She will assume this role officially from 1st July 2022. Currently, she holds the position of Deputy Dean for Postgraduate Education at the Faculty of Health Sciences (UCT). She obtained all her qualifications from UCT. As a newly qualified occupational therapist (O.T), she established the first Occupational Therapy (O.T) Department at Tshilidzini Special School, Limpopo Province, South Africa. She returned to UCT as an academic in 1998, having served as an O.T in rural South Africa and the United States of America.

Elelwani’s work at UCT over the past twenty-three years has focussed on leading with integrity, recognising this to be pivotal in advancing transformation and excellence as interdependent and interlinked concepts. She is the founding member of the UCT Black Academic Caucus, has been its Vice-Chairperson, and a member of its Executive Committee until recently. She served three years as a warden within UCTs Student Housing and Residence Life. From July 2016 to July 2020, she was a member of the UCT Council. She has also served as Chair of UCT’s Academic Freedom Committee, which hosted five successful TB Davie lectures under her leadership. She is the current member of the Advisory Board for UCT’s African Gender Institute.

As Head of Division for O.T, Elelwani led a division which became the most diverse O.T program both nationally and internationally in terms of its staff and students. During this time, she also spearheaded curriculum transformation, aimed towards a graduate profile that is responsive to the local context while being globally competitive.

Elelwani’s decolonial approach to teaching and convening postgraduate courses has received international recognition, leading to numerous invitations to lead symposia for postgraduate students and faculty in South America, the United Kingdom, and South America. She is often invited to give keynote addresses on transforming higher education or decolonising the academy, both nationally and abroad. She convened the Inaugural UCT Decolonial Summer School, and is a regular speaker at the University of KwaZulu-Natal Decolonial Summer School.

Elelwani was appointed Special Advisor on Transformation to the Vice Chancellor at UCT in 2015, in response to the student-led Rhodes Must Fall movement’s call for decolonisation. She later became a member of the Strategic Executive Task Team, during one of the most tumultuous times in the university’s history. In these roles she participated in complex, highly charged, faculty-based and institution-wide dialogues on decolonisation and decoloniality. She was instrumental in crafting the UCT Curriculum Change Framework, which is centred on decoloniality, and was released to the public in June 2018.

Elelwani has served on numerous boards for Non-Governmental Organisations, including Kidzpositive, which was the first to facilitate access to Anti-Retroviral Treatment for children born with HIV. She is currently the Chair of the Rhodes Scholarship Western and Northern Cape Selection Committee.

Nico Koopman

Nico Koopman is Deputy Vice-Chancellor for Social Impact, Transformation and Personnel at Stellenbosch University, and is a professor of Public Theology and Ethics. He was Dean of the Faculty of Theology at Stellenbosch University. He was founding member and chairperson of the Global Network for Public Theology and is a fellow of the Institute for Theological Inquiry in Princeton, New Jersey. His research focuses on themes like inalienable dignity, healing reconciliation, embracive justice, responsible freedom, equality, as well as the reciprocal and transformative impact of universities on the various spheres of society, including the domains of politics, economics, the natural environment, civil society and public opinion-formation. He is involved in public discourses in the academy, churches and broader society, both locally and internationally.

Professor Rishi Balkaran

Professor Rishi Balkaran is a South African academic and higher education leader. Born in Durban, he matriculated at Shallcross Secondary School before pursuing a Diploma and BTech in Public Management. He subsequently completed a Diploma in Hospitality Management and a Higher Diploma in Education at ML Sultan Technikon, followed by a Master’s and Doctorate in Public Management at the then University of Durban-Westville.

After spending more than 10 years working in the public and private sectors, Professor Balkaran transitioned to higher education, driven by a passion for working with youth within a higher education context. He served as Executive Dean of the Faculty of Management Sciences at the Durban University of Technology (DUT), where he was instrumental in driving curriculum renewal and developing new qualification offerings while also working towards building a research enterprise within the faculty.

Professor Balkaran joined the Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT) in January 2019 as Deputy Vice-Chancellor: Teaching and Learning, bringing more than 20 years of experience in the higher education sector. He was subsequently appointed Chairperson of the Cape Higher Education Consortium (CHEC), which coordinates collaboration among CPUT, Stellenbosch University, the University of Cape Town, and the University of the Western Cape.

Throughout his career, Professor Balkaran has emphasised keeping students and staff at the centre of institutional endeavours, and has been committed to continuing successful staff development initiatives and collaborative programmes across the Western Cape’s higher education landscape.

Professor Matete Madiba

Professor Matete Madiba is a South African academic and higher education leader currently serving as Deputy Vice-Chancellor: Student Development and Support at the University of the Western Cape (UWC).

She holds a BA (Paed) from the University of Limpopo, a BA Honours in English from UNISA, a BEd Honours from Wits University, and a Master’s in Applied Linguistics (cum laude) from the University of Pretoria. She obtained her PhD from UWC in 2009 in Information Systems.

Professor Madiba has worked in the education sector since 1988. Prior to joining UWC, she served as Director of Student Affairs at the University of Pretoria from 2012, where she also held a position as Affiliate Senior Lecturer in the Department of Humanities Education. At UP, she chaired the Institutional Transformation Committee and served on the Curriculum Transformation committee, helping develop the university’s Curriculum Transformation Framework.

She has been recognised for her innovative approach to student engagement, including the successful implementation of e-voting and online elections for Student Representative Councils and the development of a mental health chatbot to complement existing mental health programmes. She also led the UP GirlsforGirls (G4G) project, an international initiative aimed at mentoring young women to close the gender gap in and outside academia.

Her appointment as Deputy Vice-Chancellor at UWC took effect on 1 February 2023. Her research interests span higher education development, curriculum development, student success, student governance and leadership, the use of technology in learning, and higher education transformation and decolonisation.

At the national and continental level, Professor Madiba serves as a national executive committee member of the South African Association of Senior Student Affairs Professionals (SAASSAP) and has coordinated the Student Affairs sub-cluster as part of the African Union’s Continental Education Strategy for Africa (CESA).

She has published widely, with over 23 publications and more than 450 citations, covering topics from e-learning and open educational resources to curriculum mapping and cultural glossaries.