A cliche, but life does go on ...

After every storm, there's a rainbow

“After every storm, there’s a rainbow.”

So revelations over the past week at Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University (NMMU) have left many of us reeling … A leading academic at NMMU cited for the validity of his CV, and possibly doctorate. The allegation flies in the face of our ivory tower (in this case, the 18-storey edifice we inherited from our predecessor) and has us bristling in disbelief and/or anger.

A university is all about learning; it’s all about producing new knowledge; it’s all about inspiring students; it’s all about discussion, debate and discourse; it’s all about critical thinking; it's all about research; it’s all about different paradyms; it’s all about instilling new notions; it’s all about finding new solutions; it’s about technology; it’s about academic freedom; it's about serving society …

Oh, it’s about so many things … but one thing’s for sure, it’s not about CHEATING in any form of word.

So when a former dean is accused of “misrepresenting” his CV – the documentation that got him the job in the first place – it’s a tad hard to accept. But let’s not rush ahead of ourselves as the investigation is ongoing.

In the interim, Prof Velile Notshulwana has been suspended.

If we didn’t learn this via our internal e-mail yesterday, we’d have found it hard to miss today. It was again plastered on the billboards and splashed across the front page of the local daily, the Herald with its 23000 readers. (The Advertising Value Equivalent – what you would pay for the space if you were advertising - of last week’s full page expose was close to R100 000. What a joke. It’s negative news).

It’s been hard – this assault upon NMMU’s credibility, but I’m hopeful we’ll weather the proverbial storm.

Once the investigation, which is also verifying his PhD, articles and employment claims, is completed, a disciplinary hearing will be held.

As long as we do the right thing, and let the world know we have done the right thing by communicating the findings, the university will survive the present bruising. It’s been a nasty bruising that few of us in public relations and communications at the university would like to re-live, but the bruise will fade … and life will go on, and there will be many more wonderful rainbows to follow.