Vaal University Of Technology Vice Chancellor, Professor Gordon Ndodomzi Zide, a renowned academic and social scientist, assumed his responsibility as Vice-Chancellor and Principal of the Vaal University of Technology (VUT) with effect from 1st May 2017.
Prof Zide is an esteemed social transformation scholar who is respected in academia worldwide. He has vast wealth of experience and an academic career spanning more than three decades in higher education administration and management.
Prof Zide previously served at VUT as Deputy Vice-Chancellor responsible for Governance and Organisational Transformation. In 2015 he joined UNISA as Registrar, a position he held for just more than a year. To cement his academic journey, the University of South Africa (UNISA), at which Prof Zide served as its Registrar, appointed him as Professor Emeritus in Anthropology; a discipline that Prof Zide speaks highly of.
Prof Zide matriculated at the Freemantle Boys’ High School in Lady Frere and thereon proceeded to Fort Hare University, where he completed BA, BA Hons and an MA Degree in Anthropology. In 1999, the then University of Port Elizabeth (UPE) conferred on him a PhD in Anthropology. Currently, Professor Zide is one of a few Public Anthropologists South Africa has.
His senior management career kicked off when he became the first Black Registrar of the Fort Hare University, then as Advisor to the Vice-Chancellor and Principal of NMMU.
Given the breadth and depth of his Higher Education knowledge, Prof Zide surely will make an invaluable contribution not only to the Vaal University of Technology but to the Higher Education sector as a whole.
A man of many talents, it is clear that Prof Zide will bring in new ideas to the Institution and the VUT Community is looking forward to his leadership and direction. The Community is also pledging its support to working with him in positioning the Institution as well as in driving its transformation agenda.