UWC mourns the passing of Prof Brian O’Connell It is with a profound sense of sadness and loss that I share the news of the passing of our former Rector and Vice-Chancellor, Professor Brian O'Connell. 

Dear UWC Community,

It is with a profound sense of sadness and loss that I share the news of the passing of our former Rector and Vice-Chancellor, Professor Brian O’Connell.

Professor O’Connell served as Rector from 2001 to 2014. He became Rector at one of the most challenging times in the history of the University of the Western Cape.

O’Connell, who was also a student at UWC in the mid-1960s, took the helm at a time when the University was facing the aftermath of staff retrenchments, financial vulnerability, the significant loss of academic leadership, evolving enrolment trends, and a despondent campus community.

Very early in his tenure he was also confronted with another imminent crisis: an institutional merger and the potential loss of UWC’s identity. A report of 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 broad UWC community.

Prof 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. Amongst other things, he challenged the wisdom of the NWG in penalising 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 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 use and produce knowledge as agents of change.

The process of rebuilding started, but given the institution’s limited resources to attract established researchers, O’Connell faced the challenge of institutional capacity development in key disciplines and areas of its mandate. In 2002, with financial support from the Vlaamse Interuniversitaire Raad (VLIR), a funded partnership programme under the banner of the Dynamics of Building a Better Society (DBBS) began. Under O’Connell’s leadership the University cemented trusted relationships with several universities internationally. These networks served as a strong catalytic force which laid the foundation for new partnerships and alliances.

Professor O’Connell also believed that, key to strengthening the academic core of the University, was its physical re-imagining and transformation. This had begun in the era of his predecessor, Professor Jakes Gerwel, and O’Connell continued this approach. But in contrast with his predecessors’ centripetal focus, he pursued a centrifugal approach to develop new infrastructure along the campus edges to increase UWC’s visibility and put a ‘face to the place’.

Symbolically, the state-of-the-art Life Sciences Building was the first to be clearly visible from the street, and has come to represent the coming of age of the ‘Bush College’. This campus edge development was followed by, amongst other physical projects, new buildings for the School of Public Health, the new Chemical Sciences building, a home for the South African Institute for Advanced Chemistry, 1,100 additional beds in student accommodation through a public-private partnership, and a new entrance to the University on Symphony Road.

Following a phase of institutional capacity building, Professor O’Connell and his leadership team used the period between 2008 and 2014 as an exciting space for more ambitious goal-setting. 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 also characterised as an ‘engaged university’. He firmly believed that for UWC, this meant actively engaging – through its knowledge creation and dissemination roles – with the complex challenges that emerge from these very different, but equally important realities. Building its capacity to be an engaged university involved recognising the complex ways in which the academic project at UWC was deprived and distorted by the inequalities of the past, and how these inequalities continued to be perpetuated, often in imperceptible ways.

This reality informed the nature of the transformation challenges which had to be addressed, both within the institution and in UWC’s relationships with broader society. He also recognised that such challenges could not be met through superficial, piecemeal interventions which, while having rhetorical value, fail to fundamentally grapple with the inequalities of our society and the manner in which they are reproduced through the functioning and practices of higher education in South Africa.

Key to this recognition was O’Connell’s focus on embedding a culture of sense-making, acknowledging that engagement is not intellectually easy. The challenges of understanding the dynamics and needs of a society with a long history of neglect required a deep and sustained commitment to making sense of a complex and sometimes contradictory society, and to avoiding binary simplifications.

O’Connell frequently presented the story of UWC’s engagement as a metaphor for South Africa through the use of a PowerPoint slide that popularly became known as ‘the two worlds’. The top of the slide depicted a ‘picture postcard’ aerial image of Cape Town with its central business district, the sea and mountain. The bottom of the slide showed an image of a township with shacks and children playing near stagnant pools of water.

O’Connell firmly believed that through its teaching, research and engagement activities, UWC was not opting to choose, or to 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.

Prof Brian O’Connell’s term as rector and Vice-Chancellor came to an end in December 2014, but it was always a pleasure to welcome him back on our campus. Even in his later years, despite facing health challenges, UWC remained close to his heart – a place where he found joy and inspiration; a place that he shaped into what it is today. His belief in UWC and his unwavering commitment to its mission have left an indelible mark on all of us.

Professor O’Connell’s legacy is one of passionate conviction, intellectual clarity and engaged leadership. As we mourn the loss of a great man, we also celebrate his extraordinary life and the lasting impact he has had on our university and our society.

Among the many honorary doctorates Prof O’Connell received, he was also bestowed the title Commander of the Order of Leopold II from the Belgian government for his contribution to the global tertiary institution sector.

We extend our deepest condolences to his beloved wife, Judith, and his children Amanda-Leigh and Bryan, who shared in his remarkable journey. Thank you for sharing your husband and father with us.

Professor O’Connell will be remembered in different ways by individuals he touched, but I have no doubt they will all remember his humility – from picking up litter on campus when he was the Rector, to setting an example for the campus community, or the simple gesture of remembering staff member’s names – even, at times, their families. He was warm, affable and always dignified in immensely pressurised and challenging situations.

The UWC flag will be flown at half-mast this week in honour and remembrance of our beloved former rector.

Rest in peace, Professor Brian O’Connell. Your legacy of hope, action, and knowledge will forever guide and inspire us.

With warm regards,
Prof Tyrone Pretorius
Rector and Vice-Chancellor