Brian O’Connell, the former vice-chancellor of UWC, has died, aged 77. (UWC/Facebook)
- The former vice-chancellor of UWC, Brian O’Connell, has died, aged 77.
- O’Connell served as rector from 2001 to 2014.
- The university’s flag will be flown at half-mast this week in honour of O’Connell.
The former rector and vice-chancellor of the University of the Western Cape (UWC), Brian O’Connell, has died.
The university’s spokesperson, Gasant Abarder, confirmed that O’Connell, who served as rector from 2001 to 2014, died on Sunday evening at the age of 77.
The university said O’Connell was the rector during the most challenging times in the history of the university.
O’Connell, who was a student at UWC in the mid-1960s, took the helm at a time when the university was experiencing the aftermath of staff retrenchments, financial vulnerability, the significant loss of academic leadership, evolving enrolment trends, and a despondent campus community.
In a statement, the current rector, Tyrone Pretorius, said O’Connell was confronted by another crisis in the early days of his tenure: an institutional merger and the potential loss of UWC’s identity.
“A report by the government’s National Working Group (NWG) on the restructuring of the higher education landscape recommended a merger between UWC and the erstwhile Peninsula Technikon. Understandably, the report was met with huge resistance from the broader UWC community,” he said.
O’Connell led the process to resist the merger recommendation, calling for sacrifices to address the financial realities, and discipline in responding to the NWG report.
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Among others, he challenged the wisdom of the report to penalise UWC for apartheid-induced disparities and for being financially vulnerable.
He made the case that UWC’s ongoing commitment to providing an intellectual home for all – with particular attention to working-class students who showed potential – should not be penalised as a result of decades of underfunding by the state.
In the end, UWC retained its autonomous identity and status, and O’Connell then led the process for the recapitalisation of UWC.
“In his inaugural address in 2002, O’Connell argued that a university hardly deserves the name if it does not provide a space to grow in hope, to create and share knowledge, and to inform the agency.
“Through this approach, he emphasised the strength of using UWC’s distinctive academic role to rebuild the institution as an inspirational community of hope, to be a premier site of knowledge production, and to draw on the agency of its people to produce knowledge as agents of change,” said Pretorius.
O’Connell goal-setting
O’Connell and his leadership team used the period between 2008 and 2014 as an exciting space for more ambitious goal-setting, he added.
The focus was on improving UWC’s academic standing and building a distinctive research profile, particularly in areas that had been deliberately neglected under apartheid, but which also responded to the developmental challenges facing society.
Under O’Connell’s leadership, UWC was characterised as an “engaged university”.
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“O’Connell firmly believed that, through its teaching, research and engagement activities, UWC was not opting to choose or position itself in either of these two worlds but to embrace their inherent paradoxes and critically engage with the complex realities of both.
“O’Connell recognised that, in an increasingly complex world, UWC’s long-term sustainability and ability to play a meaningful role in the development of South Africa required an ability to capitalise on the tensions and advantages of both worlds,” he said.
O’Connell’s term as rector came to an end in December 2014.
Among the many honorary doctorates he received, he was bestowed the title, Commander of the Order of Leopold II, by the Belgian government for his contribution to the global tertiary institution sector.
Pretorius said the UWC flag will be flown at half-mast this week in honour and remembrance of the former rector.
O’Connell leaves behind his wife, Judith, and children, Amanda-Leigh and Bryan.
