newsletter great zimbabwe university march ......varsity’s performance in 2016 reviewed as the...

Knowledge, Culture, Development

NEWSLETTER FOR GREAT ZIMBABWE UNIVERSITY email:[email protected] MARCH/APRIL 2017

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Stakeholder endorsement continues for brand GZU

The Pro Vice Chancellor Dr Andrew Chindanya (second from right in front row) leads the team of University staff in celebrating with the Vice Chancellor Professor Rungano Zvobgo after he was honoured with the Vice Chancellor of the Year 2016 Award (Public Universities) at the Megafest National Business Awards held in Harare on 16 March 2017.

Great Zimbabwe Univer-sity's extra ordinary achievements since 2012 continue to get stake-holder endorsement with the latest approval being the presentation of the Vice Chancellor of the Year 2016 Award (Public Universities) to Professor

Rungano Jonas Zvobgo at the Megafest National Business Awards held in Harare on 16 March 2017. The award is the Univer-sity's 38th award for the University since 2012.

The prestigious Megaf-est Business Awards are

held annually as a way of recognizing, developing and promoting profes-sional business acumen at all business levels. To be eligible for the award, the Nominee should have made a significant contri-

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Knowledge, Culture, Development 2

Let us write the most glorious chapter ever for GZU

bution to their company and industry as a whole in Zimbabwe. The Nomi-nee should be making a continuous, noteworthy contribution in the search for management excellence and held up as an example and inspi-ration for others to emu-late.

Professor Zvobgo has led GZU into receiving global recognition and credibility as an institu-tion of higher learning since late 2012.

Among other personal and institutional awards have been; the Zimbabwe National Chamber of Commerce Overall Trans-

formational Leader of the Year Award (2012), the Zimbabwe Business Council Awards- Vice Chancellor of the Year 2014, the Contact Cen-tre Association of Zim-babwe (CCAZ) Zimbabwe Service Customer Ser-vice Executive of the Year in the Public Sector (2015), the Megafest Award for The Best Training and Develop-ment Institution, Bula-wayo (2014) the Zim-babwe Business Council Awards - Best University (2014) and the Masvingo City Council Quasqicen-tennial Awards -Outstanding Contribu-tion to Masvingo (2015).

Internationally, GZU-has received such hon-our as the Vice Chan-cellor's induction into the prestigious African Leadership Hall of Fame and being awarded with the African Leadership Medal of Honour for pio-neering excellence and innovation in tertiary education in Africa by the Advisory Board of the African Leadership Development Founda-tion, Inc. USA, in col-laboration with the Afri-can Leadership (UK) Limited. In addition, the board also conferred the Distinguished African Academic Excellence Award on GZU. Other awards are the Greatest

Contribution to Educa-tion, World Congress of Chancellors and Vice Chancellors, Mumbai, India, 2014, the Man-ager of the Year Award, European Association of Rectors and Vice Chancellors, Oxford, United Kingdom, 2013, Best Quality Leader-ship Award 2014, Las Vegas USA and the Majestic Five Conti-nents Award for Qual-ity and Excellence and The Total Quality Man-agement (TQM) Apti-tude Seal for Quality Performance and Best Customer Satisfaction, Geneva, Switzerland, 2013, among others.

Stakeholder endorsement continues Continued from previous page

A fter four years of massive growth and expansion, t Great Zimbabwe University today

stands at the threshold of a historic moment as it embarks on another major leap forward. The new phase of Great Zim-babwe University's growth and expansion will be spearheaded by stakeholder-driven resource mobilisation initiatives. The stakeholder-driven resource mo-bilisation programmes are ex-pected to develop the University at an unprecedented rate and in a short period of time.

The goal of the stakeholder-driven fundraising initiatives is to raise funds to provide sup-port for capital projects, infra-structure, and academic priori-ties at the University.

The first of these initiatives is the hosting of a fundraising din-ner dance by the University soon where the University's em-ployees, students, Alumni and other stakeholders are being called upon to share a passion

for the extraordinary university and the great journey it is embark-ing upon.

" While we have achieved a lot since 2012, there is much more to do as we march toward building a state of the art Main Campus at our natural home adjacent to the Great Zimbabwe National Monu-ments.

"We believe partnerships with our valued partners on such occa-sions and in such capital projects will firmly establish Great Zim-babwe University among world-class universities. Let us write the most glorious chapter ever for Great Zimbabwe University," said Pro Vice Chancellor and Chairman of the Great Zimbabwe University Fundraising Committee, Dr Andrew Chindanya.

Since 2012, Great Zimbabwe University has transformed and developed itself into a well recog-nized and robust institution of higher learning in the country, region and internationally through the ingenuity and shrewdness of its University Council and Man-

agement. With so little resources at its disposal, the University has been transformed from a single facility institution into a magnifi-cent and vibrant multi-campus institution in just over four years.

Pro Vice Chancellor and Chairman of the Great Zimbabwe University Fundraising Committee, Dr Andrew Chindanya


African universities debate harsh environment Leaders of African universities have to "disabuse" themselves from old ways and adapt to the new operating environments if their institutions are going to thrive.

Speaking at the annual Afri-can Association of Universities (AAU) workshop held at the King-dom Hotel in Victoria Falls from 29-31 March, Vice Chancellor Professor Rungano Zvobgo said the gathering was important as it attracted expertise from various Higher Education Institutes (HEIs) to deliberate on issues key that inform the running on HEIs in the face of a wide array of challenges.

"This workshop is aimed at equipping each one of us with the necessary aptitudes to sail in the murky waters of Africa's HEI tra-jectory. I believe that, at some stage, we all have had to deal

with the impact of socio-political, socio-economic as well as com-petitive driving forces and that we have learnt a lesson or two. It is against this background, la-dies and gentlemen, that I im-plore each one of us, fellows, to dig deep into our bags of experi-ence and share with fellow par-ticipants," said Professor Zvobgo.

This year's workshop was held under the theme "AFRICA HIGHER EDUCATION INSTITU-TIONS (HEI’S) IN AN AGE OF DISCONTINUITY". It was at-tended by administrators from universities from different parts of Africa.

Professor Zvobgo cautioned that: "Survival in an era of dis-continuity compels us as leaders of HEI's to disabuse ourselves of old ways of doing things. By all means, we need to throw out the assumption of continuity and

become innovative because discontinuity is a reality. We are living in a period when 'old rules' and 'old games' are un-der assault yet 'new rules' and 'new games' are yet to be fully understood. What is required ladies and gentlemen is to know the terrain on which new games are being played," said Professor Zvobgo

After three consecutive years of co-hosting the Asso-ciation of African Universities (AAU) workshops in Zim-babwe, Professor Zvobgo an-nounced that Great Zimbabwe University was handing over the hosting of the AAU work-shops in Zimbabwe to the next institution. He thanked the AAU management commit-tee for showing faith in Great Zimbabwe University's organ-isational capacity over the last three years.

Some of the delegates who attended the annual Association of African Universities (AAU) workshop hosted by Great Zimbabwe University in Victoria Falls from 29-31 March 2017.


First Big Data Analytics Boot Camp in Southern Africa

Great Zimbabwe University in partnership with the Ministry of Higher and Tertiary Education, Sci-ence and Technology Development from 2-13 April 2017 co-hosted the first ever “Cloudera Hadoop Certification Boot Camp” for ICT practitioners and researchers in Southern Africa.

Prior to the Harare workshop, ICT experts from the African continent would only access the Big Data Analytics Boot Camp in India. However, Great Zimbabwe University having identified the need for the special course in Zimbabwe, facili-tated the hosting of the course in Zimbabwe. The training camp attracted several participants from government and private companies which included Econet Wireless, Telone and Powertel.

Big data analytics is the process of examining large and varied data sets, i.e. big data, to uncover hidden patterns, unknown correlations, market trends, customer preferences and other useful in-formation that can help organizations make more-informed business decisions.

Officially opening the training workshop held at the High Performance Centre in Harare on behalf of the Vice Chancellor, Professor Rungano Zvobgo, the Pro Vice Chancellor Dr Andrew Chindanya said GZU as the Centre of Excellence in Arts, Cul-ture and Heritage Studies, the use of computers and big data analytics in the fields of Arts, Culture and Heritage studies was an exciting prospect for the University. He said some key areas for the application of Big Data Analytics and Artificial In-telligence in Arts, Culture and Heritage Studies

were in Computational Linguistics/Natural language Processing, a branch of linguistics in which the tech-niques of computer science are applied to the analysis and synthesis of language and speech and in Archae-ology.

Technical Services Manager for Mashava Campus, Mr Prince Sibanda who coordinated the Boot Camp, said that ICT professionals needed continuous training. He said that it was an important for ICT experts to get Cloudera Hadoop Certification as their ability to analyse big data helps companies have competitive edge as they can compare trends and see where there is need for im-provement.

A participant at the Boot Camp, Mr Regai Kanongota, who is a Database Administrator with Econet, said that the course was handy as his job entails him to process data on a daily basis. He hailed GZU for bringing big data analytics skills "to our doorstep”. Other partici-pants also applauded the initiative saying they antici-pate getting such training in the future.

The Boot Camp attracted 54 students who were split into two training sessions. Each course was six days long and was facilitated by seasoned experts of more than 20 years’ experience who included Mr Sai Kumar Pilla from India and Dr Panaishe Chaurunga who has a wide array of experience from the United Kingdom and France.

The two Boot Camp sessions ended with participants being awarded certificates of attendance. Professor Zvobgo, who presented the certificates, thanked the participants and said that GZU would strive to ensure that local people are equipped with adequate skills.

Mr Sai Kumar Pilla from India making a presentation on the meaning and importance of Big Data Analytics.


Varsity’s performance in 2016 reviewed As the Great Zimbabwe Univer-sity 2014-2018 Strategic Plan entered its penultimate year this January, representatives from the University Council and man-agement from 19-24 March, 2017 met in Victoria Falls to re-view progress made in meeting targets set in the 2016 Strategic Plan Implementation Framework (SPIF) document as well as to set guiding targets for 2017.

University Council Deputy Chairperson Mrs Joana Gwisai and Mrs Ketina Gorejena repre-sented Council at the workshop while Vice Chancellor Professor Rungano Zvobgo led the team of senior managers from the Aca-demic and Non-Academic Units of the University.

The five-day review workshop provided a platform for a frank and fair assessment of the pro-gress made in achieving the nine key result areas set out in the strategic plan document. The nine key results areas are: Req-uisite Physical Structures, Aca-demic Excellence, Information Communication Technology-Driven University, Vibrant and Well Resourced Library, Effective Financial Management Systems, Efficient Human Resource Man-agement and Administration, Effective Student Management Systems, Effective Communica-tion with External and Internal Stakeholders, and Resource Mo-bilisation.

In her address, Mrs Gwisai applauded the University for their hard work and for expand-ing and growing the institution. She urged all staff to seek to con-tinuously improve the status of the University and not to rest of their laurels.

The Vice Chancellor said the workshop was a very critical tool to measure the University's pro-gress and to ensure that all de-velopments and programmes were being done in tandem with the University niche and man-date.

University Council Deputy Chairperson Mrs Joana Gwisai gves her remarks at the 2016 Strategic Plan Implementation Framework (SPIF) review work-shop. Looking on are fellow Councillor Mrs Ketina Gorejena and Vice Chancellor Professor Zvobgo.

Professor Zvobgo stresses a point at the workshop.

Pro Vice Chancellor Dr Andrew Chindanya welcoming members to a session of the workshop.

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Team Fusion’s Dangwe launched

Members of Team Fusion posing for a photo at the ceremony to launch their debut album, Dangwe.

O n Friday, April 7, Team Fusion launched its debut album, Dangwe, amid pomp and ceremony at the Civic Centre Hall in Masvingo.

The colourful ceremony was graced by Vice Chancellor Professor Rungano Zvobgo, Profes-sor Wiseman Magwa, the Vice Chancellor of Re-formed Church University and His Worship the Mayor of the City of Masvingo Councillor Hubert Fidze, among other dignitaries. Veteran musician, Bob Nyabinde and music producer, Munya Vialy also attended the ceremony. The launch was spiced up by the broadcast of some of its segments live on PowerFM.

The eight-track album covers different music genres to cover all tastes from Afro traditional, r’n’b, gospel, house, to reggae. Team Fusion is a university band comprising five female and five male students musicology students and others drawn from other Departments in the University.

The album is aptly named Dangwe which simple means the first child as it is the group's first album. The album has eight tracks all sung by the students. The album was recorded by award winning producer Munya Vialy at Vialy Studios in Harare.

Professor Zvobgo cuts the ribbon to officially launch the album. Helping the Vice Chancellor are Mr Nicholas Mu-tami, the Dean for Simon Muzenda School of Arts, Culture and Heritage Studies and Mrs Sinikiwe Gwatidzo, the Uni-versity Registrar.


Guitar for the Vice Chancellor

Impressed by the contribution that Great Zimbabwe University is making in the performing arts industry, veteran song-writer, singer and guitarist, Bob Nyabinde on Friday, April 7, 2017, donated his acoustic guitar to the Vice Chancellor Professor Run-gano Zvobgo.

Nyabinde, who is known as the “Headmaster” in the showbiz industry, was a guest artist at the launch of GZU's music students, Team Fusion's, de-but album, Dangwe at the Civic Centre in Masvingo. Moved by the talent that was on display and the ex-pert organisation of the album launch ceremony,

Nyabinde invited Professor Zvobgo to the stage and donated his guitar to the Vice Chancellor. He said he was impressed by the efforts that Professor Zvobgo was making in promoting performing arts in the country as was evidenced by the recording and launch of the Dangwe album by GZU students.

In response, Professor Zvobgo said the University was determined to take performing arts to a higher level. Professor Zvobgo delighted the crowd when strummed the guitar and revealed that he once was a member of a university music outfit.

Veteran musician Bob Nyabinde donated a guitar to Professeor Zvobgo for the role the Vice Chancellor is playing in promoting Performing Arts at Great Zimbabwe University and nationally.

Film on the way Following the successful launch of the music album by students from the Simon Muzenda School of Arts, Culture and Heritage Studies' Department of Perform-ing Arts, the School is now ready to release a film.

Speaking at the launch of the album, Mr Nicholas Mutami, the Dean of the Simon Muzenda School of Arts, Culture and Heritage Studies, announced that the Department of Performing Arts was at an advan-taged stage of shooting a film. The film, titled Solo naMutsai, explores university student life, the ups and downs, the love life, dealing with external forces and different social classes. The film is due for release mid-year.

Mr Nicholas Mutami (left) the Dean for Simon Muzenda School of Arts, Culture and Heritage Studies and his Deputy Mr Amos Mushati at the album launch.


GZU ranked among 100 best law schools

T he Herbert Chitepo Law School continues to make its presence felt on the in-ternational arena as it placed amongst the top

100 best law schools at the prestigious White & Case International Law Law Philip C Jessup Moot Competition which was held in Washington DC at the Hyatt Regency on Capitol Hill be-tween 9th – 15th April 2017.

The tournament is currently the largest moot competition of law schools in the world, and the oldest one dedi-cated to international law. It was com-menced in 1960 and named after the late Honourable Philip C Jessup, a for-mer Judge of the International Court of Justice. It is hosted by the International Law Students Association (ILSA) and sponsored by White & Case, an interna-tional law firm which specializes in in-ternational law. This was GZU’s first ever participation in this competition, and judging by its performance, cer-tainly not the last.

The 2017 edition of the Jessup Cup attracted the participation of approxi-mately 700 law schools from all over the world. At the time of registering for the tournament in October 2016, GZU was labelled as team number 688, an indi-cation of the sheer size of the competi-tion. The participants were presented with a fictional case grounded in real life and on-going international disputes as a means of testing the students’ knowledge of international law. Each of the 700 law schools were required to submit written memorials outlining each team’s heads of argument and the legal authority supporting the argu-ments presented therein. After a rigor-ous elimination process, the hosts of the competition announced the teams that had advanced to the oral leg of the tournament, that is, the World Champi-onship rounds. GZU was amongst those teams that proceeded to the World Championship rounds in Washington DC. After four rounds of arguing against various teams with which it was paired, the GZU team was knocked out of the tournament before the reaching the round of 32. The Jessup Cup was ultimately whom by the University of Sydney from Australia.

However, in coming up with the final rankings of the tournament’s best

teams, ILSA combined the results of both the written memo-rials as well as the oral submissions made by each team. So despite winning the tournament, University of Sydney ranked fifth amongst the list of best 100 law schools in the entire tournament. Proudly representing Zimbabwe, GZU’s Herbert Chitepo law school was ranked the ninety eighth best law school in the entire tournament. There were only four other African teams to make it onto the list, namely, University of Pretoria from South Africa; Kwamwe Nkrumah University of Science & Technology from Ghana; The Law & Development Centre from Uganda; and The American Uni-versity in Cairo from Egypt. Commenting on the team’s per-formance, Mr Z. T. Zvobgo of Dube, Manikai & Hwacha, who attended the tournament as the GZU’s team coach/advisor, said: “This tournament was by far the most competitive one that GZU has ever taken part in. The level of competition we witnessed there was simply out of this world, which is why I am proud of GZU’s performance as evidenced by being ranked amongst the 100 best law schools at the tourna-ment. Believe me, that was no mean feat.” GZU was repre-sented by Kudakwashe Muzenda, Blissful Dzimiri, Ivy Ma-dziwo and Simbarashe Chigumira.

There were only four other African teams to make it onto the list.

Simbarashe Chigumira, Ivy Madziwo, Blissful Dzimiri and Kudakwashe Muzenda.


All set for Conference on Gender and Poverty Great Zimbabwe University through the Mbuya Nehanda Centre for Cultural Studies, will from 15-16 May 2017 host an International Confer-ence on Breaking the Nexus between Gender and Poverty at the Elephant Hills Hotel in Victo-ria Falls. The conference is dedicated to the ad-vancement of practical and policy-oriented ap-proaches to eradicating poverty.

The conference brings together researchers, development practitioners and policy makers from all over the world to analyse the relation-ship between Gender and Poverty. The sub-themes for the conference include but are not confined to the following, Gender and Migra-tion, Gender and Culture, Gender and Vulner-ability, Gender and Sustainable Development, Gender, Law and Politics, and, Gender and Community Health.

The Minister of Women Affairs, Gender and Community Development, Honourable Nyasha Chikwinya is expected to officially open the

workshop. The key speaker at the workshop is Dr. Caroline Sweetman. Dr Sweetman is an Associate of International Gender Studies (IGS) at Lady Margret Hall, Oxford, and lectures regularly at UK universities including Warwick and Oxford Brookes University. She is a renowned researcher whose recent work was published in the Interna-tional Handbook of Gender and Poverty (2011) and the Routledge Handbook of Gender and De-velopment (2015).

She holds a PhD from the University of Leeds, MA University of East Anglia, BA University of Cambridge and is the Editor of the world’s only International Journal, Gender and Development, published by Taylor and Francis/Routledge. Her PhD focused on poverty, women empowerment and economic livelihoods.

All papers presentations at the workshop will be considered for publication in a special issue of the Great Zimbabwe University’s Dzimbahwe Jour-nal of Multidisciplinary Research [DJMR].

GZU co-hosts 2017 African Finance Association Conference

Great Zimbabwe University, through the Mun-humutapa School of Commerce, the African Finance Journal and several academic and research institutions, will be co-hosting the 14th African Finance Association Conference in Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe. The conference will take place on the 17-18 May 2017 at The Elephant Hills Hotel.

The African Finance Association Confer-ence is the most prominent academic finance gathering on the continent and the event brings together practitioners and academics throughout Africa and beyond to discuss emerging research of interest to Africa.

The emphasis of the conference, which will be held under the theme "Applied Research in Accounting, Finance, Insurance and Eco-nomics on Africa", will be on high-quality, theoretical and/or applied research focusing on issues relevant to emerging trends in ac-counting, finance and economics which have special relevance to Africa's development.

Professor Emanuel Nnadozie will give the Keynote Address. Professor Nnadozie is a Pro-fessor of Economics and, since 2013, the Ex-ecutive Secretary of the African Capacity Building Foundation (ACBF). He was formerly Director of Economic Development and NEPAD Division at the United Nations Eco-nomic Commission for Africa (UNECA) where he was also the Chief Economist. An award

winning Economist, his work, spanning over 30 years, has impacted sustainable growth and development in Africa. He is the author of African Economic Development, Africa at the Crossroads of Globalization, and dozens of other peer reviewed journal articles. The Deputy Governor of the Reserve Bank of Zim-babwe, Dr Kupukile Mlambo will be one of the distinguished speakers at the conference.

The African Finance Association is affili-ated to a number of flagship publications in-cluding African Finance Journal, Review of Development Finance, Africagrowth Agenda and Development Finance Agenda.

After the conference, authors are encour-aged to submit their work to be considered for publication in the African Finance Jour-nal. Certificates of participation will be issued to all authors.

The African Finance

Association Conference is the most prominent aca-

demic finance gathering on the continent.

9


Yet another successful exhibition at ZITF Great Zimbabwe University's stand at the just ended 58th Zimbabwe International Trade Fair (ZITF) was a popular stop for several people who visited the annual exhibition.

The University had an opportunity to show-case its Schools and Campuses as well as to interact with a cross section of society at the trade fair which was held in Bulawayo from 24 to 30 April 2017.

Visitors to the stand expressed a lot of inter-est in associating with the University while many prospective students enquired about de-gree programmes. Some of the visitors enquired about the degree programmes and immediately applied to study with the University .

The Vice President of the Republic of Zim-babwe, Honourable Emmerson Mnangagwa vis-ited the GZU Stand. The Vice President was briefed about the developments that have been taking place at the University over the last four years. He was impressed by the rate at which the University is growing.

The Deputy Minister of Higher and Tertiary Education, Science and Technology Develop-ment, Honourable Dr Godfrey Gandawa, the Minister of Primary and Secondary Education, Honourable Dr Lazarus Dokora and the Chief Executive of the Zimbabwe Council for Higher Education (ZIMCHE), Professor Emmanuel Ngara also visited the GZU Stand.

AN EXCITING ENVIRONMENT …. Students captured at the Mucheke Campus Student Residences.

The Vice President of the Republic of Zimbabwe, Honourable Emmerson Mnangagwa being taken around the Great Zimbabwe University ZITF 2017 Stand.

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newsletter great zimbabwe university march ......varsity’s performance in 2016 reviewed as the...

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