MALAIKA MAHLATSI: LenkaBula endured patriarchal violence – then she turned UNISA around

Over the past few days, one of the biggest discussions in academic circles has been on the impressive research output of the University of South Africa (UNISA) in Department of Higher Education (DHET) accredited journals.

The most recent DHET publication research output report indicates that UNISA, the biggest long-distance higher learning institution in Africa, had the sixth-highest publication output in South Africa in the 2023 reporting year (the reports are published for the previous academic year, meaning that the 2024 report will be published in 2025).

With 1,807 research outputs in DHET accredited publications, UNISA has more outputs than 20 other higher learning institutions, only trailing behind the University of Johannesburg (3,195), the University of KwaZulu Natal (2,344), the University of Pretoria (2,056), Stellenbosch University (1,937) and the University of the Witwatersrand (1,907).

UNISA has historically produced very little research relative to its size and has ranked very low on the list of research outputs. The Damascene conversion that it is undergoing, both in terms of the quantity and quality of its research, can be traced to the tenure of its current Vice Chancellor, Puleng LenkaBula, who was recently appointed for a second five-year term after joining the institution in 2020.

What makes the UNISA story profound is not only its impressive improvement both in research output and global rankings (which I do not support – a discussion for another day), but the reality that the woman who, today, is being celebrated for her visionary leadership, was once treated as a pariah. Few Vice Chancellors in South Africa have endured the systematic abuse that LenkaBula has had to endure even before she took the reins of UNISA.

In 2020, while the process of appointing a new Vice Chancellor for UNISA was underway, politicians were already having a field day setting parameters for discrediting LenkaBula.

In October of that year, United Democratic Movement (UDM) leader and current Deputy Minister of Defense and Military Veterans, Bantu Holomisa, wrote a letter to President Cyril Ramaphosa claiming that Higher Education Minister, Dr Blade Nzimande, was interfering with processes of the Vice Chancellor’s appointment at UNISA, and that the said minister wanted to forcefully have LenkaBula installed. 

Holomisa went so far as to question LenkaBula’s qualifications and to state that she was Nzimande’s lapdog. None of these accusations had any validity.

LenkaBula is an internationally renowned professor of ethics who has served several universities in different capacities. Immediately before her appointment at UNISA, she was the vice-rector for institutional change, student affairs and community engagement at the University of Free State – a position she had held since 2018. Prior to that, she was the dean of students at the University of the Witwatersrand.

She is a board member of local and international ecumenical and academic formations. She is, and always was, qualified and fit for the job.

Within months of her tenure at UNISA, LenkaBula was hurled into a raging fire, subjected to false accusations that the South African media callously gave expression to. In March 2022, newspapers were running with the story about the cost of renovations to LenkaBula’s residence, which amounted to just over R2m.

Dr Blade Nzimande was asked to account for this in parliament. There is no debate that accountability is crucial and non-negotiable. But what was happening was not about genuine accountability, it was about peddling misinformation to cement a narrative that LenkaBula was incompetent, wasteful, corrupt, and above all, unethical.

The reporting around the expenditure on the house presented LenkaBula as someone extravagant who wasted the university’s money. The reality, though, is that no Vice-Chancellor is ever involved in the renovation process – that is the work of the operations department since the Vice Chancellor’s residence is the property of the institution. 

The budget for the renovations was approved by the UNISA council and while the renovations went over it, it was in no way her doing. In fact, the first person to raise the alarm about these costs was LenkaBula, upon going on a site visit of the residence, going as far as to demand that all quotations be stopped and reviewed.

This was communicated by the university. But no one, certainly not the media and men in academia, was interested in these facts. It was easier to chastise LenkaBula.

Over the years, reports about UNISA have largely been negative. Resignations by members of staff and Council were reported as frustrations with a LenkaBula who was said to be “running amok and purging council members and other members of the staff”, as reported by IOL on the 8 June 2023.

Normal administrative hurdles that UNISA has had for decades, such as some delays in the issuing of student results, or some problems with technical services, were reported as signs of her incompetence. She could do nothing right. By the time October 2023 came, UNISA was in court fighting with the government to not be placed under administration.

Minister Nzimande, relying on a report by an independent assessor, decided to place UNISA under administration. Confirming this in the publishing of Government Gazette No. 49582, which announced the decision to appoint an Administrator for the university. The decision would later be reversed by an Order of the Pretoria High Court.

The idea that UNISA is dysfunctional has been spun on its head by its impressive performance not only in terms of rankings and research publication output, but by its growing partnerships with critical stakeholders in academia, the private sector and governments regionally and internationally. 

Under LenkaBula, UNISA has cemented its place in the ideational space. The institution is not perfect – there are still some issues that it needs to resolve, some historical and some the result of contemporary constructs. But none dare say the university collapsed under its first woman Vice Chancellor. None dare say LenkaBula is incompetent or incapable.

The story of LenkaBula is the story of many Black women, in and outside academia. It is a story of the insidiousness of patriarchal violence, which is anchored on undermining, abusing and discrediting capable women. 

It happens because, as a society, we do not hold people accountable for destroying capable Black professionals.

I have raised this in the context of Rand Water Group Chief Executive Officer, Sipho Mosai. We give a blank cheque to the media to cement damaging and dangerous narratives, and do not insist on the presentation of facts when they appear.

This is why the successes of UNISA today are being discussed in academic circles, yet, its perceived failures were headlines in newspapers and news sites. We do not insist on righting this injustice, and because of that, patriarchal violence towards Black women professionals, enabled by agencies of socialisation like the media, continues.

As a Black woman, a scholar and someone who is deeply invested in the ideational space, I am proud of the transformation of UNISA, which now sits rightfully in the place of serious institutions that produce meaningful knowledge. 

And when history has its say, it will remember that this all happened because a Black woman was the stone that builders had rejected, which has ultimately become the cornerstone of the university’s growing success.

Malaika is a geographer and researcher at the Institute for Pan African Thought and Conversation. She is a PhD in Geography candidate at the University of Bayreuth in Germany