Where does anything begin, except at the beginning? If one had to pinpoint a key starting point for the research wheels to turn at University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN), it would be with a secret bequest that provided the impetus.
Back in 1949, it was reported in the Natal Mercury that an anonymous donor was bequeathing one hundred thousand pounds to fund a Chair of African studies at the then Natal University and to establish and maintain an African library and museum.
Some months later, the identity of the donor was revealed.
Her name was Margaret Roach Campbell, or “Killie” as she was affectionately known by friends and family.
Campbell’s “mania” for bits and pieces, old letters, diaries, “any memorabilia that may well have landed up in the dustbin” provided a strong foundation for her library.
Not only did she gather the material “like a squirrel” scouring for treasures in old bookshops, second-hand shops in South Africa and overseas, she then lovingly collated, catalogued and stored her collection of historical memorabilia for future use.
Her passion for sharing knowledge and encouraging scholars, teachers, university academics to utilise her museum for ongoing research, made Muckleneuk, her home, a favourite haunting ground for scholars at all levels
Zulu speakers were asked to record the history of their families, their homes and their clans.
“It is good,” Campbell told students at her home over morning tea, “to have remembrance of the past and build up your history as seen through your eyes… before the wise old men and women of the kraals have passed away and their knowledge is lost.”
Author Donald Morris said of Campbell in the foreword to his book, The Washing of the Spears, which deals with the Anglo-Zulu war of 1879: “Killie Campbell has worked industriously and largely alone for more than half a century to preserve the vanishing traces of the early days of Southern Africa.”
Muckleneuk – Campbell’s century-old Cape Dutch style family home – which overlooks the city from its lofty position high on Durban’s Berea – is today home to one of the best Africana collections in the southern hemisphere.
In 1965, her valuable collection was bequeathed to the University of Natal (UKZN) which has since then administrated the collection and continued to add to it.
It is this collection of books, pamphlets, excerpts, photographs, maps, newspapers, journals and paintings, as well as the notable collection of manuscripts that has enabled a newly-published glossy coffee-table book to chart in detail the evolution of higher education in KZN.
In a modern setting, much of UKZN’s energies have that same research-driven passion that inspired the early knowledge-seeking pioneers like Campbell.
In that category are institutes like the Africa Centre, with Professor Marie-Louise Newell at the helm, which charts the impact of the HIV epidemic at ground zero, unbundling some of the mysteries and conundrums that have surrounded this disease over the past 50 years.
In some ways, the questions being asked have not been posed before in any setting. One of the trials under way, for example, is the “Treatment-as-Prevention” trial which looks at whether treating a patient at the time of diagnosis (rather than waiting for a specific viral count) prevents onward transmission and reduces the incidence of HIV in the population.
If it does, the treatment protocols globally could undergo a radical change.
Campus
Again the research-driven process plays a defining role in other institutes on the campus.
The Centre for Aids Programmes of Research in South Africa, led by Professor Salim Abdool Karim, has become a designated UNAids collaborating centre for HIV prevention research, while the newest research facility on the block, the KwaZulu-Natal Research Institute for Tuberculosis and HIV, has the biggest ever medical research grant in South Africa, which it is hoped will “yield significant breakthroughs within a few years in the diagnosis, prevention and treatment of these killer diseases”.
The work of founding director, Bill Bishai, and his team of scientists includes the sequencing of genomes of 1 000 bacterial samples from patients with HIV/TB for the next 10 years, providing a database that will address drug-resistant forms of the disease.
Medical pioneering is nothing new to the university as this 212-page book affirms.
It was more than 100 years ago that a medical missionary, James “John” McCord, had a vision to train nurses and African doctors to bring health care to KZN communities.
His McCord Zulu Hospital has partnered with the university’s medical school since the 1940s.
It was McCord and a fellow medical missionary from America, Dr Alan Taylor, who first suggested the idea of a medical school in Durban, in the 1920s, but it was not until an unlikely pairing of George Gale with his devout Scottish missionary background, and Sidney and Emily Kark of Eastern European, Jewish and Zionist lineage, that the medical school became a reality.
According to early reports, they were “united by their compassion for humanity and their determination to alleviate the suffering they witnessed in the community”.
It can also be said that they were among the earliest research initiators partnering with the Institute of Family and Community Health to increase their knowledge of local conditions.
The research journey, as we learn from a number of archival sources, has taken researchers on many and varied investigations.
Lester King, a geology lecturer, pursued his interest in geomorphology, searching the jungles of Brazil and the frozen wastes of Antartica in any effort to learn about the Earth’s landforms and the processes that shape them. His textbook remains in use in tertiary institutions around the world.
Another of those early research pioneers was electrical engineer, Trevor Wadley, who came up with revolutionary radio surveying technology, still used worldwide. His high-frequency receiver is used by the British navy.
A famous son of the university was Hugh Clark, who pioneered the first radar centre of radio communication in South Africa.
If we were to pick a revolutionary early researcher from the pages of this book, it would include agriculture lecturer, George Hunter, who in the 1960s used rabbits as intermediate “living incubators” to transport fertilised ova from ewes in England to South Africa where they were transferred to surrogates.
The result was the birth of twin lambs, Romulus and Remus, now immortalised in an ornate clock on the campus.
Today those research traditions are moving on, taking a more relevant role in African scholarship, involving investigations that benefits the continent as a whole.
Among the newer generation of researchers are A-rated scientists like Pat Berjak, whose work includes the preservation and propagation of endangered indigenous plants.
Also highlighted is the work of Thumbi Ndungu, a molecular virologist looking at the underlying mechanisms of HIV pathogenesis, and Nceba Gqaleni, who holds the research chair in indigenous knowledge systems.
While the university was never far from controversy, particularly during the fraught apartheid period, innovation also seemed to be a driving force.
The university of Durban-Westville, for example, was the only university in the country to combine many faiths, including Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam and Judaism under the umbrella of theological studies.
It was also the only university in South Africa to teach Sanskrit, the oldest of all the Aryan languages.
The country’s first solar car, management of landfill emissions, more efficient sunscreens, pesticide pollution, astrophysics, mathematics and quantum physics are all part of the continuing research journey taking place on our doorstep
lizclarke4@gmail.com
* The book is currently available at the Varsity Shop from G Haffajee at 031 260 8934 or 083 785 3030. The Varsity Shop is located at the Westville Campus, Shop 18, Student Centre. The cost of the publication is R250