The Thinking Masses of South Africa Foundation has proposed to rename the University of the Western Cape in honour of Dr Allan Boesak.
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PROMINENT South Africans have thrown their weight behind the proposal to rename the University of the Western Cape (UWC) as Allan A. Boesak University, in honour of liberation theologian, scholar, and activist Dr Allan Aubrey Boesak.
The formal proposal coincides with the anti-apartheid icon's 80th birthday.
The submission, made by The Thinking Masses of South Africa Foundation (TMoSAF), describes Boesak’s decades-long influence on the university as “a sustained, generationally resonant relationship that has influenced the intellectual formation of students, the ethical grounding of faculty, and the moral compass of the institution itself”.
“The University has a historic and unprecedented opportunity: to recognise, while he yet lives, a presence that has indelibly shaped the moral, intellectual, and liberationist contours of South African society,” said President Bishop Dr Clyde Ramalaine, head of TMoSAF.
UWC has confirmed it has received a proposal, but this proposal had not yet been considered through its governance structures.
The proposal highlights Boesak’s impact during the apartheid-era resistance of the 1980s, asserting that his leadership “helped consolidate UWC’s standing as a centre of academic excellence, critical consciousness, and social justice activism”.
Ramalaine says renaming the university would not be a symbolic gesture but a principled recognition of measurable contributions, including intellectual mentorship, ethical leadership, and sustained civic engagement.
“His life embodies praxis in its most authentic sense: scholarship and activism fused to challenge oppression, reimagine justice, and model accountability, values that UWC has championed across decades,” Ramalaine said.
President Bishop Dr Clyde N.S. Ramalaine, head of TMoSAF handed over the formal proposal to rename the University of the Western Cape in honour of Dr Allan Boesak to UWC Vice-Chancellor Professor Robert Balfour.
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Rev. Dr Lionel Louw, Advocate Muzi Sikhakhane SC, Dr Lindiwe Sisulu, and Dr Iqbal Survé are among the prominent individuals who have endorsed the proposal. TMoSAF also announced the launch of a national and global campaign to build support for the initiative.
“The proposal emphasises that renaming the University would not be a symbolic or emotional gesture but a principled, historically grounded recognition of measurable and enduring contributions,” Ramalaine said.
Cape Times