Remembering Jakes - Chancellor, our chancellor

Abstract

From introduction: Gerwel was an exceptional, courageous, gifted and pioneering South African intellectual, scholar, leader and citizen. He had a profound commitment to creating a just and humane society. Through a long and distinguished association with the higher education sector, as an academic, dean, vice-chancellor, chairperson of the Committee of University Principals in the early 1990s, chancellor, and chairperson of the Mandela Rhodes Foundation, Gerwel was an outstanding champion of higher education. As chancellor, he challenged Rhodes to become socially conscious and think critically and imaginatively about access, equity and transformation, and about its role in socioeconomic development issues in South Africa, especially in the Eastern Cape.