The University of KwaZulu-Natal or UKZN is a university with five campuses in the province of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa. It was formed on 1 January 2004 after the merger between the University of Natal and the University of Durban-Westville.
History
The university was formed by the merger of the University of Natal and the University of Durban-Westville, in 2004.
Organization
The university is governed in accordance with the Higher Education Act of 1997, and its constitution is specified in the Statute of the University of KwaZulu-Natal, as approved by the South African Minister of Education and the Parliament of South Africa.
In the statute, the university consists of:
the chancellor (the titular head). The first chancellor of the merged university was Dr Frene Ginwala. It is currently Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng.
the vice chancellor (the executive head)
two or more deputy vice chancellors (currently there are five full and one acting)
the registrar (responsible for registering students)
the council (responsible for governance of the institution as a whole)
the senate (responsible for governance of academic activities)
the students representative council (responsible for students representation)
the institutional forum (responsible for advising the council on matters of human rights and equality)
the colleges (currently there are four)
the academic and support staff
the students
the convocation (all the alumni and some others)
Academic structure
The university is made up of four colleges, which are in turn made up of several schools. In most cases, a subdivision is spread across one or more of the university’s campuses. For example, the Chemistry is in both the Pietermaritzburg and Westville campuses.
College of Agriculture, Engineering and Science
School of Engineering
School of Agricultural, Earth and Environmental Sciences
School of Chemistry and Physics
School of Life Sciences
School Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science
College of Health Sciences
School of Clinical Medicine
School of Laboratory Medicine & Medical Sciences
School of Health Sciences
School of Nursing & Public Health
College of Humanities
School of Religion, Philosophy and Classics
School of Arts
School of Social Sciences
School of Applied Human Sciences
School of Built Environment and Development Studies
School of Education
College of Law and Management Studies
Graduate School of Business and Leadership (Business Management Association in cooperation with Hampton College Durban)
School of Accounting, Economics and Finance
School of Law
School of Management, IT and Governance
An institute built in cooperation with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute is the new KwaZulu-Natal Research Institute for Tuberculosis and HIV, opened in 2012. It is on the Nelson Mandela School of Medicine campus.
Campuses
The university is geographically divided into five distinct campuses, which partially correspond to its managerial and academic divisions. Two campuses (Edgewood and the Medical School) house specific academic divisions (education and medicine respectively), but the remainder of the university’s academic divisions span Howard College, Pietermaritzburg and Westville.
Pietermaritzburg campus
Pietermaritzburg campus was the main location of the University of Natal and its predecessor, the Natal University College, until the opening of the Howard College campus in Durban. This campus contains the university’s oldest structure, Old Main Building, built in 1912. Pietermaritzburg campus offers a broad range of academic degrees and is the only UKZN campus providing training in agriculture, theology and fine arts.
Howard College campus
Howard College campus was the Durban location of the University of Natal until the 2004 merger. It spans the Berea Ridge. The campus was opened in 1931, having been donated by Mr T. B. Davis, in honor of his son, Howard Davis, who died in the Battle of the Somme during the first world war. Howard College offers a wide range of degrees, with a large engineering department consisting of Electrical engineering and Chemical engineering. The College of Humanities and College of Law and Management are also positioned on this campus together with the Centre For Creative Arts (CCA) and the Elizabeth Sneddon Theatre which host annually the Durban International Film Festival (DIFF), Poetry Africa, Time of the Writer and the creative dance festival JOMBA! which is produced by the FlatFoot Dance company.
Westville campus
UKZN Westville Campus
Westville campus is in an environmental conservancy in Westville, about 20 km West of Durban. It was formerly the site of the University of Durban-Westville before the 2004 merger. Westville offers a range of degrees, and will soon be the main home of the disciplines of commerce and management.
Nelson Mandela medical school
Nelson Mandela medical school campus, created in 1950, was originally a racially segregated part of the University of Natal. It was one of the few tertiary institutions legally allowed to provide education to black people under apartheid. It was granted Nelson Mandela’s name on its 50th anniversary in 2000. The medical school is the home of health sciences.
Edgewood campus
Edgewood campus is located in Pinetown, east of Durban. The buildings originally formed the Edgewood College of Education, which was incorporated into the University of Natal in 2001. Edgewood is the main location of the university’s Faculty of Education.
Student life
UKZN is home to various student organizations such as debating unions, film clubs, poetry societies, and sports teams.
The UKZN Rugby team – The UKZN Impi – features in the highly contested Varsity Cup national rugby competition, and the Howard College Debating Union competes in both the World Universities Debating Championships as well as the South African National Universities Debating Championships.
UKZN established the Centre for Creative Arts (CCA) in 1996. The CCA is a multi-disciplinary arts organisation based within the School of Arts at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. It coordinates several respected annual festivals, providing students with access to creative platforms and interesting opportunities aimed at developing their artistic talents. The four main festivals organized by the UKZN CCA are:
Time of the Writer
The UKZN Time of the Writer festival invites a host of international authors to take place in a variety of roundtable discussions, readings, seminars, book launches, and developmental programs such as workshops, master classes and motivational talks. The festival has been running since 1998.
Durban International Film Festival
First held in 1979, The Durban International Film Festival is one of the oldest and largest film festivals in southern Africa.
JOMBA! Contemporary Dance Experience
Started in 1998, Jomba continues to offer world class dance theater that challenges audiences out of passive lethargic viewership
Poetry Africa
The UKZN Poetry Africa started in 1997, and features performances, readings, and book-launches from some of the world’s most diverse poets
Ranking
UKZN was ranked fourth out of the universities in South Africa by the Times Higher Education World University Rankings and sixth by the QS World University Rankings 2018. UKZN has historically had a very strong reputation in the areas of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, and is ranked first in the country for physical sciences and engineering, second for computer science, and third for mathematics.
Internationally, UKZN is ranked in the 401-500 bracket by the Times Higher Education World University Rankings, and in the 701-750 bracket by the QS World University Rankings 2018
Controversies
There have been a number of controversies at the University of KwaZulu-Natal since its foundation.
Firstly, there have been several staff strikes and student protests, with some protests from 2009 onward involving police intervention and the use of riot control measures, as well as violence on the part of some strikers.
Secondly, there have been a series of legal and disciplinary actions taken by senior university management against academics for speaking in public about the university. These actions have drawn wide criticism from academics and from organisations such as Cosatu and UNESCO.
They were also the cause of a 2008 staff strike.
Source From Wikipedia