http://free.financialmail.co.za/07/0907/fox/bfox.htm
07 September 2007 CIDA CITY CAMPUS A rethink of boundaries By Stuart Theobald Cida City Campus - the much-lauded, nearly free university in Johannesburg - is to get a management shake-up following a review of its education and governance structures. The shake-up will also deal with Cida's controversial use of transcendental meditation (TM). Executive chairman and Cida cofounder Richard Peycke is leaving. He is a proponent of TM and will now focus full-time on TM-related activities. Charismatic Cida director Taddy Blecher, also a TM proponent, will be taking the role of group CEO, but will leave the educational responsibilities to a newly created position of dean. Peycke would not return calls to the FM. A coup for Cida is the arrival of Michael Hay, formerly deputy dean of the London Business School and a highly respected management academic, who will serve as acting dean until year-end. A full-time dean will be sought by a committee le d by UCT vice- chancellor Njabulo Ndebele. The shake-up follows reviews of Cida's activities, chiefly by Investec, one of Cida's funders. The board also undertook a review process. "In order to take Cida to the next level of operational excellence we have really had to look at it to decide how it should be run," says Investec director David Lawrence, who will be acting chairman pending a full-time appointment. Despite the decision to make TM voluntary for students some years ago, sponsors have continued to worry about the "religious/spiritual" activities at the school. "Our concern, like that of many other donors, related to the fact that there was a spiritual ideology being imposed on students. We felt the two issues needed to be separated - the issue of education and spirituality or religion," says Zohra Dawood, executive director of the Open Society Foundation, which provides Cida with funding of R2m/year. Dawood hastens to add that "we think it is a very good education model - it is innovative, it targets the right constituency." Cida has now developed an "educational position statement" to "define its model, particularly regarding academic excellence and quality, as well as personal development and the use of TM." Lawrence says any formal contractual ties to TM organisations, which included regular payments, have been cut, though TM will remain an option for students.
