Prof Valiant Clapper, executive dean of the college.
He has a passion for people and believes that building lasting relationships with key stakeholders in the College of Economic and Management Sciences and Unisa, as well as externally, is what ultimately will make CEMS great.
Addressing the first college board meeting of the year, the new Executive Dean of CEMS, Professor Valiant Clapper, said that one could embrace the future with innovative thinking without getting rid of what has worked in the past.
CEMS should play a significant role, not only because it was Unisa’s biggest college and probably the largest on the continent, but because it was a major contributor to the South African and African economies with its efforts in tuition, research and community engagement.
According to Clapper, CEMS alumni could play a much bigger role in ensuring the college’s success. There was talk of building an entrepreneurship hub and the pivotal role business could play in building a place where entrepreneurs could go for assistance from specialists in CEMS as well as from the public and private sector was noted.
“CEMS has alumni all over the world and in key positions. We should engage them in everything we do to ensure our combined efforts will contribute to our vision of being the management and finance education and training provider of choice,” Clapper said.
For this year, CEMS management has set three goals for the college in terms of portfolio, people and the planet.
In terms of the portfolio, the college wants to ensure that its programme qualification addresses real education , training, and research needs that enhance graduateness and intellectual growth as demanded by the knowledge and information society.
As people, the college wants to create and sustain a nurturing, caring, and enabling environment characterised by appropriate academic and intellectual growth that will equip staff to deliver a good service to students.
This should all happen in the context of caring for the environment in which the college functions by fostering an ethic that pursues and sustains development, stewardship and the sustainable exploitation of resources.
Prior to his appointment, Clapper acted as the Executive Director and CEO of the Unisa Graduate School of Business Leadership (SBL). He served as Deputy Executive Dean at CEMS from 2010 to January 2012.
