Mr Bongani Mgijima joined Stellenbosch University (SU) on Monday (3 February) as the new Director of the University Museum.
He follows in the footsteps of Dr Lydia de Waal, who retired as Director at the end of last year.
After completing a BA degree and Post Graduate Diploma in Museum and Heritage Studies at the University of the Western Cape, Mgijima (38) started his career in 1998 as curator of the Lwandle Migrant Labour Museum, which became the first township-based museum in the Western Cape. There he also started the Lwandle Township Walk, the first and only township heritage tourism product in Lwandle.
In 2000, Mgijima completed a museology internship at the Bildmuseet, a contemporary art museum in Umeå, northern Sweden. In 2002, he became manager of the Worcester Museum, heading the biggest open-air museum in the Western Cape.
Thereafter, Mgijima joined the government as Deputy Director of Museums and Heritage Resources in both the North West Province and the Western Cape, and from 2009 until 2012 he was Director of the Albany Museum in Grahamstown, which is affiliated to Rhodes University. Before joining SU, Mgijima was Head of Cultural Heritage at the City of Cape.
Last year, Mgijima completed an MPhil degree in Future Studies at SU, with a thesis titled Future Scenarios for the Governance of Museums in the Eastern Cape.
Commenting on Mgijima's appointment, Prof Julian Smith, Vice-Rector (Community Interaction and Personnel), said: "Under the leadership of Dr De Waal the University Museum has benefited in recent times from an external evaluation and from the Corporate Entities Management framework. It is also poised to establish greater cooperation with the academic sector, in particular with the Department of Visual Arts.
"Mr Mgijima joins us at an exciting time and I have every reason to believe that his qualifications and experience will ensure an even greater contribution of the Museum to the realisation of the institutional vision."
As the new Director, Mgijima plans to align the University Museum with SU's positioning as a university of the 21st century, and to support SU's three pillars of learning and teaching, research and innovation, and community interaction.
"Stellenbosch University, like many other institutions in South Africa, has a very unpleasant past. It has always been seen as the intellectual home of apartheid. However, in recent years it has owned up to this past and committed itself to building an inclusive society. SU has also committed itself to become a 21st-century university – a university of the future. And I would like to be part of this future," says Mgijima.
- Read an interview with Mr Bongani Mgijima in the February issue of Kampusnuus.
CAPTION: Mr Bongani Mgijima. Photo: STEFAN ELS
