Rhodes University
Project Management in Grahamstown

2012 Rhodes University • Rhodes University, proactive, P.O. Box 94 Grahamstown 6140 South Africa.
Employ library staff who are skilled, and who display a commitment to realising Rhodes University Library's mission.

The Rhodes University Environmental Committee was born out of a collaborative, cross-disciplinary academic forum for the environment which established an Environmental Programmes Committee in 2002, and was re-constituted in 2006 as a fully fledged Senate sub-committee. Resources include law reports, legislation and other government publications, reference works, books and journals. This is mainly a study area, which includes three group study rooms. We are also open to visitors worldwide from similar university departments and ichthyology and fisheries institutes. Its history is a chronicle of the people whose intellect, vision and courage created and sustained a university, often against seemingly insuperable odds. It was obvious that only a central university college could provide a satisfactory standard of university education. Grahamstown, out of the mainstream of commercial and industrial life, seemed an unlikely choice for a university city, but local residents were strongly in favour of the idea. The new university college prepared its students for the examinations of the University of the Cape of Good Hope. As numbers increased, students were assigned tutors and tutorial groups within academic departments, providing a forum for the lively debate characteristic of a Rhodes education. The foundations of the Rhodes residential system were founded within a decade. Increased post war subsidies, a government bond on all Rhodes property and further help from the Rhodes Trustees made possible the construction of the first part of the Baker Arts Block and more residences. Further loans and another government bond were negotiated and building continued. Government grants were drastically reduced and De Beers did not declare a dividend in Armed with grants from the government and the Rhodes Trustees, and loans from various municipalities, the Council went ahead with the building of more residences and the completion of the Baker main block and tower. A substantial grant to buy books for the Rhodes Library followed. The ambitious building programme went on throughout the war and post war years with funds borrowed from the municipalities of Grahamstown, Port Elizabeth, East London, King William's Town and Cape Town. When the future of the University of South Africa came under review in 1947, Rhodes opted to become an independent university. Response from the Rhodes Trustees, the directors of De Beers Consolidated Mines and numerous other public and private organisations and individuals was overwhelming. In terms of the Rhodes University Private Act, the University College of Fort Hare was affiliated to Rhodes University. The Rhodes Senate and Council objected strongly to this, and to the Separate University Education Bill, which they condemned as interference with academic freedom. Negotiations began in 1971 to buy the Training College buildings and grounds and a number of adjacent buildings. Generous gifts from mining houses enabled the University to complete the Kimberley Hall complex by opening Gold Fields House in 1985 and De Beers House in Classes are still small enough to make individual tuition in tutorial groups feasible. The future of Rhodes lies not in greater numbers, but in increasing academic excellence and building upon almost a century of academic achievement.