The newly appointed Vice-Chancellor and Principal for the Central University of Technology, Free State (CUT), Prof Pamela Dube, was officially inaugurated into office on Friday (17/02).
The inauguration took place at a ceremony held at the Boet Troskie Hall at the Bloemfontein Campus.
Dube officially began her term at the university on 1 January and has entrenched herself into the CUT community, receiving a warm welcome from various stakeholders and partners.
Delivering her inaugural address, Dube identified four educational priorities as she sees them for a university of technology.
“Our first responsibility as a university is to undertake a reappraisal of the meaning of technology in the broader population, to demystify its force while bending its potential to the ideal of post-apartheid freedom. More than simply talking about the use of technology, we will be asked to educate our people on how technology should be approached to make judgements necessary for a thriving civic life,” said Dube.
She added that the second responsibility is to offer the best teaching for CUT students in the arts of design and invention. “This is not merely an education in speculations about what technology can help us achieve, but in how it reveals our predicament as a species and a planet. The education we offer our students is not merely about the market value of technology but the process of becoming more human. It is about fostering intellectual inquiry, engaged scholarship and critical citizenry.
“My fourth and final plea for this university’s educational vision is that it pursues an ambition to lead our students to a position of self-sufficiency, but more. While we will endeavour to build entrepreneurial skills, we should be careful that such skills are not simply one to enhance markets. Rather, we should also work towards building technological resources and advanced qualifications (for instance in professional MA and doctoral degrees) that will help expand other fields of knowledge, especially in the areas of health, infrastructure development, service delivery, agriculture and manufacturing, and economic sustainability. For this we need a capable, committed and visible professoriate, to contribute effectively towards this university’s educational vision and the renewal of our academic, research and innovation endeavours,” she concluded.
Dr Tate Makgoe, MEC for Education in the Free State relayed a message on behalf of the Free State provincial government and the local government as the university has a very strong relationship with both. “We hope that many of the projects that we have will continue under your leadership, I believe that they will even be strengthened. We have quite a number of partnerships with the university, this is our second home. Prof, we are ready to work with you, the university must be part of the ecosystem of society and if we work together, we will be able to deal with all the challenges that we are confronted with,” added Makgoe.
As she takes on her role as Vice-Chancellor and Principal, Dube has initiated effective partnerships and relationship-building approaches with academic, government, key industry and business role players which will encourage a fruitful tenure.
