By Pedro Tabensky, Lindsay Kelland, Mapula Maponya and Nolwandle Lembethe*

 

The Allan Gray Centre for Leadership Ethics (AGCLE) is thrilled to announce its partnership with the Career Centre and sponsorship of the annual Top 100 Student Awards. Henceforth, the awards will be known as the “Rhodes University & Allan Gray Centre for Leadership Ethics Top 100 Student Leadership Awards”.

These awards present an opportunity not only to recognise, honour and celebrate the work and leadership ability of some of our most outstanding students but also to inspire all our students to strive for excellence and to mirror back to our institution the kinds of students it wishes to produce.

The central aim of the AGCLE, as mandated by its late benefactor, Dr Allan Gray, is the cultivation of ethical leadership. At a recent Management Board meeting, Professor Barney Pityana, who has been a member of our Board since its inception, reminded us again of the reason for the establishment of the Centre and challenged the university with the following paraphrased remarks:

“The challenge that we face is how to become a university in the proper sense. What are the essential elements of a university? More than teaching and learning, it is about becoming human—of humanising.”

These aims are also central to our University’s Vision and Mission, and in his foreword to our newly-updated Institutional Development Plan (IDP), our Vice-Chancellor, Professor Sizwe Mabizela, commits us to much the same vision of what a university ought to be. In his words: 

“Through our teaching, research, community engagement and extracurricular or co-curricular activities, we are committed to producing outstanding graduates who are curious and innovative, analytical, articulate, resilient, balanced and adaptable; graduates with a lifelong love of learning; graduates who are knowledgeable and skilled; graduates who are critical and democratic citizens and ethical leaders who are committed to the values of human understanding, social justice, human development and service to society; graduates who are committed to human rights and environmental justice; graduates who will not be content with only seeing our society or the world as it is but can imagine a better society and a better world and can work with courage, dedication and conviction for the betterment of our society and the world.”

In 2022, two members of our academic staff—Dr Lindsay Kelland and Ms Mapula Maponya—served on the panel for the then newly-established “Ubuntu Award”, an award that recognises students who embody the spirit of ubuntu in their service to Rhodes University and the Makhanda community as a whole. They both found themselves inspired by the work of many of our students who go beyond the call of duty to better the lives of those around them. They were struck by the fact that these students were not only precisely the kinds of students that Dr Gray had in mind when he tasked the AGCLE with fostering and supporting leadership at Rhodes University, but also embody the attributes our University hopes to instil in its students.

Indeed, the Top 100 student leaders model the holistic personal growth and graduate attributes the AGCLE and Rhodes University hope to encourage and foster in all our students.

Rhodes University should support these students in developing their already outstanding leadership abilities. Working to develop these students aligns with the third strategic goal of our IDP, particularly with one of the measurable objectives set against this goal—namely, “Provid[ing] comprehensive and coherent leadership development and training opportunities for students.”

The AGCLE is committed not only to providing the funding necessary to honour and celebrate our student leaders but also to providing support, mentorship and training to these students and to creating the kinds of spaces where they can further grow by engaging with one another and by working to benefit all Rhodes University students.

The Top 100 gives concrete expression to Rhodes University’s motto—Where leaders learn—and inspires us towards something even more significant, a vision of Rhodes as a place Where ethical leaders learn.

 

*Academic staff members at The Allan Gray Centre for Leadership Ethics (AGCLE)