Established | 1 January 2004 as merger of UN (est. 1910) and UDW (est. 1960s) |
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Chancellor | Dr Zweli Mkhize |
Vice-Chancellor | Dr. Albert van Jaarsveld |
Academic staff
|
1,472 (2007) |
Students | 37,850 (2007) |
Undergraduates | 24,897 (2007) |
Postgraduates | 3,807 (2007) |
Location | Durban, Westville, Pinetown and Pietermaritzburg, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa |
Campus | 5 campuses |
Website | www.ukzn.ac.za |
The University of KwaZulu-Natal or UKZN is a university with five campuses in the province of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa. It was formed on 1 January 2004 after the merger between the University of Natal and the University of Durban-Westville.
The university was formed by the merger of the University of Natal and the University of Durban-Westville, in 2004.
The university is governed in accordance with the Higher Education Act of 1997, and its constitution is specified in the Statute of the University of KwaZulu-Natal, as approved by the South African Minister of Education and the Parliament of South Africa.
In the statute, the university consists of:
The university is made up of four colleges, which are in turn made up of several schools. In most cases, a subdivision is spread across one or more of the university's campuses. For example, the Chemistry is in both the Pietermaritzburg and Westville campuses.
An institute built in cooperation with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute is the new KwaZulu-Natal Research Institute for Tuberculosis and HIV, opened in 2012. It is on the Nelson Mandela School of Medicine campus.
The university is geographically divided into five distinct campuses, which partially correspond to its managerial and academic divisions. Two campuses (Edgewood and the Medical School) house specific academic divisions (education and medicine respectively), but the remainder of the university's academic divisions span Howard College, Pietermaritzburg and Westville.
Pietermaritzburg campus was the main location of the University of Natal and its predecessor, the Natal University College, until the opening of the Howard College campus in Durban. This campus contains the university's oldest structure, Old Main Building, built in 1912. Pietermaritzburg campus offers a broad range of academic degrees and is the only UKZN campus providing training in agriculture, theology and fine arts.
Howard College campus was the Durban location of the University of Natal until the 2004 merger. It spans the Berea Ridge. Howard College offers a wide range of degrees, with a large engineering department consisting of Electrical engineering and Chemical engineering. The College of Humanities and College of Law and Management are also positioned on this campus together with the Centre For Creative Arts (CCA) and the Elizabeth Sneddon Theatre which host annually the Durban International Film Festival (DIFF), Poetry Africa, Time of the Writer and the creative dance festival JOMBA! which is produced by the FlatFoot Dance company.