This action by the University stems from the epistemological underpinnings of the student movement’s just critique against the standing socio-economic cultures of the university in the 2015 and 2016 period. This culminated into institutional conversations on the extent to which the university spaces promote or hinder social cohesion and a common identity. The naming and renaming process in my view is an integral part of the transformation journey of the university. It is a journey that we must collectively traverse in our quest to build unity, social cohesion and thus making Nelson Mandela University a truly diverse institution with a humanising encounter.
The University, acting on its own, would not have reached this milestone. Thanks to the activism and agency from our students. Hence, we strive to place the student voice at the centre of our daily practices as a University in order to cultivate a humane environment that always has an intellectual appetite to engage with imaginative and scholarly differences.
The naming and renaming of our buildings and spaces after social figures who carry the values and principles of our social contract as a constitutional democracy reaffirms our noble contribution to the democratisation of our consciousness. This journey must also be located within a broader on-going transformation trajectory in much more complex areas such as the curriculum, the language of research, learning and teaching, and the state and praxis of our humanizing pedagogy.
As we embrace and stay focused on the pathway towards giving more impetus to the emerging university identity, we are awake to the reality that this is a continuous process of interaction shaped by our context. Identity construction is a mirror of our collective beliefs, ideals and values as influenced by our environment.
The naming and renaming process cannot be divorced from our imagined future and our identity as Mandela University will be inescapably a subject of continual construction as the university adapts and responds to its ever-changing environmental and social context.