On Thursday 27 July, Prof Ihron Rensburg, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Johannesburg, presented a seminar on ‘Leadership under crisis: the case of the University of Johannesburg’. The event was hosted by the Ali Mazrui Centre for Higher Education Studies in the UJ Faculty of Education and the UJ Postgraduate School.

About Prof Ihron Rensburg

Prof Ihron Rensburg became Vice Chancellor of the University of Johannesburg in 2006. Prior to that he was CE Strategic Services at the South African Broadcasting Corporation, Deputy Director General of South Africa’s Department of Education, and General Secretary of the National Education Crisis Committee. In May 2015, he completed his term as Commissioner of South Africa’s National Planning Commission, where he chaired the Working Group on Social Protection and Human Capabilities. The National Planning Commission chartered South Africa’s first National Development Plan 2030.

Together with South Africa’s Deputy Minister of Education, Rensburg is Co-Chairperson of Education Dialogue SA. He recently served as Chairperson of the South Africa as well as the Southern Africa Universities Vice Chancellors Associations, Chairperson of the Ministerial Committee on Student Accommodation in South African Universities, a Member of the Ministerial Committee on the Funding of South African Universities, Councillor of the Association of Commonwealth Universities, and Board Member of the Commonwealth of Learning.

Prof Rensburg holds a Doctor of Philosophy degree in International Comparative Education from Stanford University in the United States, obtained with distinction with a dissertation entitled “Collective Identity and Public Policy: From Resistance to Reconstruction in South Africa, 1986-1995”. He holds an MA degree in Political and Organisational Sociology, also from Stanford University, and a B. Pharmacy degree from Rhodes University. In 2004 he completed the Global Executive Development Programme with distinction at the Graduate Institute of Business Science (GIBS) at the University of Pretoria. His dissertation was entitled “Unleashing Peak Performance and Resilience in Times of Great Challenge: How True Leaders Make the Difference.”