As the University of Cape Town (UCT) looks back on 175 years of achievement, it is a vastly changed organisation from the SA College (SAC) founded as a private high school with three teachers for 115 boys in 1829, as well as from the tertiary institution with 200 students it had become by 1896.
In 1916, when government passed the legislation to approve the transformation of SAC into UCT, the academic staff consisted of 49 lecturers and 15 assistants. There were 469 undergraduates, of whom 100 were women. There were no postgraduates.
Today UCT has 4 927 staff, of whom 55% are female and 47% black. There are 20 000 students, of whom nearly 50% are black and nearly 50% female and more than one-third are postgraduates. The university produces more of the country's black engineers than any other SA university. Over the six years to 2003, 60% of engineering students were black.
"In spite of its strong liberal tradition, UCT cannot claim it has always been a place where black people and women have felt comfortable," says vice-chancellor (VC) Prof Njabulo Ndebele, who took office during 2000 after former VC Dr Mamphela Ramphele became the first South African to be appointed to the position of World Bank human development activities MD.
Ndebele acknowledges that though black students have been accepted at UCT from the early 1920s and it has a history of sustained opposition to apartheid from the late-1950s and of promoting an increase in black students from the 1980s, there are elements of its past of which it is less proud.
"Though black and white students marched and protested together against the Separate Universities Bill and other discriminatory legislation, an unspoken practice existed on campus in the late-1950s and early-1960s that generally excluded black students from extra-mural' activities. In the old medical faculty, compliance with some discriminatory legislation was practised such as the exclusion of black medical students from 'white' wards. Can you imagine the trauma for black students under those circumstances?"
A public apology to all students who had experienced the humiliation of race discrimination during their years of study at UCT was made at an honorary graduation ceremony in 1998 by Ramphele and the then-deputy VC Prof Wieland Gevers. This gave impetus to a new spirit of cohesiveness and co-operation for transformation, which started in the early-1980s when the then VC Dr Stuart Saunders opened all residences on campus to students from all races and started raising funds internationally for study grants for black students.
Over its 175 years, UCT has produced more than 60 000 alumni, among them three Nobel laureates - the late Prof Alan Cormack received the Nobel prize for physiology in 1979, Sir Aaron Klug of Cambridge University won the chemistry prize in 1982 and Prof Emeritus JM Coetzee won the literature prize in 2003.
From the long list of outstanding achievers, Ndebele cites examples such as Cissy Gool, the first black women to graduate from UCT with a Master's degree and a tireless campaigner against social injustice; heart-transplant pioneer Dr Chris Barnard; Hamilton Naki, who started his career at UCT as a gardener and last year received an honorary Master's degree for the pioneering work he undertook alongside Barnard; and AC Jordan, author of Wrath of the Ancestors; and his son arts & culture minister Dr Pallo Jordan. In 1946 AC Jordan became the first black lecturer at UCT and 10 years later its first black PhD graduate.
"This year two of our leading academics have received international honours. Prof Jennifer Thomson was given a Unesco award as a leading woman scientist in Africa, and cosmologist Prof George Ellis was named the winner of the Templeton prize for advancing the understanding of science and religion."
During the late-1990s, a more flexible and socially relevant degree programme was introduced at UCT and 10 faculties were reconfigured into six - commerce; law; engineering & the built environment (incorporating architecture, planning and construction economics); health sciences (formerly medicine); humanities (incorporating the arts, education, music and fine art); and science.
UCT was positioned as a "world-class African university", aiming to exemplify Africa's potential for excellence on its own ground, while measuring itself by the benchmarks of the best international universities.
Ndebele considers his task to be the creation of an enhanced student experience, growing UCT's global profile and consolidating its research identity. He has also been focused on steering UCT towards long-term financial sustainability through a commitment to innovation and increased profit from research, as well as enhanced fiscal awareness and discipline.
An unexpected indication of increasing international stature came in 2002 in the form of a survey of global VCs conducted by the Financial Times, based on a list of 10 benchmarks. UCT was placed among the world's top 23 universities.
"It is obviously not the definitive word on the matter, but it was gratifying to see UCT appearing alongside institutions such as Cambridge, Harvard, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Oxford, Princeton, Stanford, Witwatersrand and Yale," says Ndebele.
UCT has a carefully planned disability-friendly campus, study centres with extensive facilities, residential accommodation for 5 000 students, campus security, medical-care support including HIV/Aids awareness training and free testing, peer support groups, sporting facilities and more than 90 social clubs, including SA's oldest debating society. It has a pass rate of more than 80% among first-, second- and third-year students, and 93% among fourth-year students.
Increased profit from university research was generated, with income from contracts increasing by 62% from R131m in 2000 to R210,8m in 2003. From an operating deficit in 2000, financial discipline led to a recurrent operating breakeven point being reached ahead of target in 2002.
As chairman of the SA Universities Vice-Chancellors' Association, Ndebele has played a leading role in the reshaping of tertiary education in SA. One of his focus areas remains the challenge of increasing delivery of world-class graduates and postgraduates from previously disadvantaged communities.
To this end, UCT chancellor Graça Machel recently announced the Chancellor's Challenge 175, an initiative for financially needy students, which aims to raise R175m over five years.
Ndebele says half the proceeds raised will go to a UCT endowment fund to strengthen the university's finances and the other half will be put towards financial aid for students.
The funds will be used to finance the studies of 175 chancellor's scholars for three years. They will receive the financial aid on condition that once they've left UCT, they will contribute to the fund to help the next generation of students.
