Wilgenhof residence culture reckoning: Stellenbosch University needs more than leadership change

In late October 2024, former Constitutional Court Justice Edwin Cameron filed an affidavit claiming improper interference with the final report of the independent panel investigating the so-called “punishment rooms” at Stellenbosch University’s Wilgenhof male residence.

The affidavit was part of the Wilgenhof Alumni Association’s court application opposing the then closure of Wilgenhof. What struck me most about Judge Cameron’s action was that at the time, he was the Chancellor of Stellenbosch University. I found myself asking why, in that leadership role, he did not initiate an internal institutional dialogue about these concerns, rather than engage in litigation against the university.

More recently, Justice Cameron has partnered with Mr Johann Rupert to co-author a statement arguing that Ms Nicky Newton-King should not be considered for re-election as Chair of Council at Stellenbosch University.

In moments of upheaval at our universities, leadership at the management level matters immensely. But the voices of influential stakeholders whose stature – by virtue of the public respect they command – lend weight to the public debates that ensue.

When powerful individuals step in, they can calm the waters or, at times, unsettle them. The concerns raised by Justice Cameron and Mr Rupert about governance issues related to the Chair of Council’s handling of the June 2024 panel report on Wilgenhof are not inconsequential.

Criticism and scrutiny are important and necessary for transparency in leadership at our universities, but the manner of such critique matters. It matters, too, what remains unsaid in the delivery of critique of university leadership by individuals in positions of power and authority outside the universities.

When the disturbing reports about the images from the “locked rooms” at Wilgenhof appeared in News24, there were also stories describing how experiences of practices there left lasting psychological scars on some students.

Unsettling questions on residence culture

These accounts and the images that accompanied them confronted us as the university community with something much deeper than the governance issue raised in Rupert’s and Cameron’s 10 March statement.

These were the voices of students raising very unsettling questions about residence cultures and the persistence of traditions passed down through generations, which are at odds with the values the university seeks to uphold.

The visual evidence – the objects and images – was difficult for many of us at SU to reconcile with the idea of a transformed institutional culture. Whatever their historical context, these images and the culture and tradition they represent couldn’t be dismissed in light of students’ voices recounting their painful experiences of the cultural practices they represent.

I have been privileged to be part of a facilitation team working with Wilgenhof student leaders and leaders from other residences, and to witness first-hand how these young people are committed to building a new ethos grounded in principles of dignity and respectful humanity.

It is important for those in influential leadership positions to promote efforts to transform institutional cultures and set the tone for more meaningful debates in the public sphere, especially within higher education institutions.

The Wilgenhof story offers an important opportunity for us to interrogate what we have normalised, perhaps what we defend out of loyalty and fail to question because it is so inextricably interwoven with our sense of belonging. It challenges us to consider not only whether we are prepared to hold others accountable for their decisions on Wilgenhof, but also whether we are willing to examine the moral blind spots of enduring loyalties within our own histories with institutional communities.

This is why I think the narrow pursuit of a change in Council leadership misses an important moment of reckoning.

The isiXhosa metaphor ukugxobha amanzi – to stir the waters until they become muddy – is particularly apt here. Sometimes an intervention by people in positions of power can risk doing precisely that.

Polarisation vs reflection

When public statements deepen polarisation rather than invite careful reflection, it obscures the issue at hand – the problem of the historical weight of the practices uncovered at Wilgenhof – and it becomes difficult to focus on the important task of transforming the institutional cultures that required an intervention in the first place.

It’s not that accountability and governance issues aren’t important, but rather that the absolutist stance demanding that the Council Chair step down shuts down a crucial conversation about the role Wilgenhof student leadership is playing in imagining new traditions that will contribute to a transformative institutional culture.

Universities are, by their nature, spaces for dialogue and contestation. When critique takes an adversarial tone rather than an invitational one, however, it can harden positions and shut the door to a more productive debate that could model how power and authority can be used to build bridges rather than destroy them.

The ongoing renewal process within Wilgenhof has brought students, Wilgenhof alumni and facilitators into a shared space of engagement, where difficult archival histories are being confronted and trust is being built through dialogue.

This work is necessarily slow and often difficult. But it reflects a commitment to transformation grounded in a process of reckoning and an openness to learning from history and its relation to the contemporary moment.

To be meaningful, this process must address past cultural practices that are at odds with the university’s transformational vision and be cognisant of the experiences of those affected by them. We must hold governance to account, for sure. But to focus on this issue as it has played out in public reproduces the very divisive debates the university has worked so hard to heal.

Meaningful transformation

Stellenbosch University has made meaningful strides towards becoming a more inclusive institution, and the Council and its Chair have been fully behind these initiatives.

The process of institutional transformation has never been easy, nor can it ever be “completed”. It requires not only transformation policies and structural reform, but also a sustained willingness on the part of institutions, those who lead them, and senior stakeholders to engage in self-critical reflection

The question, then, is not simply whether the Chair of Council should go.

Rather, it is whether the university community and those who seek to influence it from outside are willing to confront the full complexity of what’s required to transform institutional culture. Ultimately, our hope for change won’t be in the adversarial pursuit of changing the leadership in Council.

The quiet imagination of the Wilgenhof students’ leadership in this moment of reckoning offers a far more hopeful and accountable vision for the future of an inclusive Stellenbosch University than a focus on leadership change in Council.

Individuals in positions of influential power can make statements demanding actions in a direction they desire. But influential power must also be accountable for what it chooses not to see. DM