Last week, University of Witwatersrand Vice-Chancellor Adam Habib made the Hail Mary desperation play of running an SMS poll, asking students and staff if they were willing to return to classes if the security apparatus standing sentinel throughout the campus remained there to keep them safe. It was another attempt to break the deadlock between students and management, following the renewed bout of #FeesMustFall protests that were the result of Minister of Higher Education Blade Nzimande’s recommendation that fee increases for 2017 should be capped at 8%. On Monday, a national higher education imbizo took place, which included all “stakeholders”. In the first of a series of profiles of South Africans working the frontlines of our troubled country, RICHARD POPLAK sits down with the VC, a man who finds himself as the face of Power, while wielding none of it.
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