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?When Prof. Stan du Plessis, Stellenbosch 肆客足球's Chief Operating Officer, enters a room or steps onto a stage, he fills it. Then follows that familiar warm smile, eyes sparkle, an energised greeting, and you know his sharp mind is ready to engage, inspire and challenge (when needed).
Prof Stan's go-to film is The Big Lebowski; he can quote as readily as he can any 20th -century philosopher or economist like David Ricardo, Adam Smith, Friedrich von Hayek and of course, Karl Popper, who — just like him — believe that while our understanding of the world is inheritably limited, there is the constant need to explore and learn: "We know a great many things, but our ignorance is boundless and sobering."
The early years
After completing his matric at Kempton Park High School, Stanislaus Alexander du Plessis enrolled in 1991 at Stellenbosch 肆客足球 for a B.Com in Mathematics, dead set on becoming an actuary. Of course, he finished with distinction after his first year but then got economically sidetracked in his second year when the legendary economic lecturer Prof Sampie Terblanche gave him his first glimpse into the history of economic thought. The series of lectures commenced with the teachings of Saint Augustine (354-430 AD), who laid some ethical foundations that would later influence medieval and modern economic thought, followed by St. Thomas Aquinas, David Ricardo, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Adam Smith, David Ricardo, Karl Marx, with Mary Wollstonecraft in between them "because of Sampie's quirkiness", and so on. Says Prof Stan: "By the time we got to Hobbes and Locke, my actuarial science career was ruined. I didn't know that anything could be as interesting as this."
Prof Stan finished his actuarial science degree with distinction after adding economics as an extra major with actuarial science and mathematics, which was crucial as technical background for his studies at the 肆客足球 of Cambridge, Clare College, where he enrolled for an MPhil in Economics (with a scholarship from the Oppenheimer trust), which he achieved in July 1996.
Prof Stan loved Cambridge. "I've always been a romantic about universities. From the first time I set foot on a university – the Empire Road campus of Wits, a majestic campus. Universities were always part of the discussion in our house. I'm so fortunate that all my grandparents studied." His great love for history was greatly influenced by his grandmother's encyclopaedic knowledge and incredible passion, making her a remarkable storyteller."
"My grandmother was a very dynamic and sort of unstoppable force. She shared with us the impression that the world is a fascinating place, and you should find out about it. I spent a lot of time as a kid reading encyclopaedias. I always thought a trip to the library was a highlight.
"Education was always a part of what we valued, and universities were part of that. We knew that universities like Cambridge and Oxford- and their study of economics are were the summit of the discipline." He says Cambridge is incredibly famous to Economists because of John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946), one of the most influential economists of modern times who studied there.
"I spent most of my time there studying the teachings of Marx and Ricardo. I was a very left-wing student, hanging out with the lefties and studying with my supervisor, one of the world's greatest Marxists, Lord Eatwell – a tremendous scholar. At Cambridge, I learned how to be a good scholar and scientist. Science is not just brute facts – you don't just throw your work on the table and say, there. Being a scientist means you can compellingly ask a question and be able to answer it persuasively, something I also learned from Lord Eatwell. I was so lucky to be his only student, as in Cambridge you often have just one student per lecturer. In my college for example. We had 500 academics and 400 students."
"Lord Eatwell's room was at Trinity College, next door to Isaac Newton's room, where he studied at Cambridge in the 17th century. "So, I would knock there, and then he would tell me to mind my head because people were shorter when this building was constructed. He was also a very tall guy. I had such an intellectually stimulating time learning how to be a scholar."
Life in London
After Cambridge, Prof Stan joined Old Mutual International Asset Managers (UK) in London in March 1995, first as a research analyst and later as an economist. "I absolutely loved my job. I was basically paid to read the newspaper and think about the world and share these thoughts and insights with the audience. "It was thrilling to be invited to be the 'morning investor' on CNBC business television, having to talk for an hour in the morning with the news anchor. I would start in Japan and take them through the entire global map. It was also an incredible time in the world economy during globalisation in London, with London very much in the centre of that."
During his three years in London, he continued studying with an older colleague and brilliant economist, Nigel Morgan, who was also a student of Karl Popper at the Londen Stock Exchange (LSE) in the 1950s. "Until today, I believe Nigel – a brilliant economist – significantly influenced my economic thinking. "He instantly demonstrated to me that all the Marxist stuff was wrong. So, we relearned economics together.
"By this time, I was no Marxist and left-wing, and from an ideology perspective became alienated from my other great influence, Prof Sampie, who – like me – think the greatest book we had ever read is Lord John Acton's book: Lectures on Modern History (1906). "It is undoubtedly the book I will read if I'm only allowed to take one book to a desert island. I have a copy next to my bed that is so heavily annotated, and there are notes on every single page that stick out. It is an unbelievably outstanding book. When I gave it to him the first time to read, he spent all night with it. He came to my office with red eyes the next morning, and he gripped the book and he said: 'ek het nie geweet enigiets kan so goed wees nie'" (I didn't know anything can be this good.")
Time for change
While in the UK, SU approached him to apply for a teaching position at the Department of Management Sciences (EMS), he was immediately interested in pursuing an academic career. He thought he will evaluate this decision at the end of every year. "But as you can tell, the evaluations always came out positively. "Every time I said: 'No, I'm loving it here, I enjoyed it. It was a fantastic switch" – one that lasted over 25 years."
"The Department of Economics is an extraordinary group of people, and when you only know one department, you don't always appreciate how special they are because you just think all departments are like that. Later I learnt that they were not just another department; they were exceptionally collegial. It really was a team effort, and I was fortunate that that was the department where I was both a student and later a colleague."
After completing his PhD at SU in 2003 he became a distinguished macroeconomist and academic leader, Prof Stan held various roles at SU: Professor of Economics, Vice-Dean for Research the Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences Dean of the Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences and Chief Operating Officer, steering SU's operations and finance through some stormy waters since January 2018 when he stepped into this challenging position. Recognised as a leading scholar in Monetary Economics in South Africa, he was often invited as a keynote speaker during the SA Reserve Bank's international conferences.
Though he is a specialist in Monetary Economics, Prof Stan has been an interdisciplinary scholar for most of his career. "Many of the world's problems require an interdisciplinary approach, and I have benefitted from collaboration with colleagues in many fields."
Beyond Economics, he has published in disciplines such as Philosophy, History, Law and Public Theology. As an academic at SU, he received the 肆客足球's highest research award on four occasions, including twice during his tenure as COO. Over his academic career, he published 45 papers in peer-reviewed journals and wrote 17 chapters in various books.
Last year (in May 2024), Cambridge 肆客足球 Press published his latest book, entitled Reconsidering Central Bank Independence.
EMS on the rise
The SU he found here in the early 1990s was not as research-intensive as today, Prof Stan says. His vision was that SU should change the direction of the economics department. "I thought, well, we should become the best in the country, and the way to do that is to raise the quality of our programmes to the international level. So, I came back with a vision that our best students should be able to go to Cambridge and Oxford and Harvard, which meant that we needed a technical intensification of our work."
After a very intensive and highly contested debate in the department, a significant culture shift followed, particularly in the postgraduate syllabus, which was initially very controversial. "But once we implemented it and saw the results after the first year, it became clear it was the right move. After seeing the impact, UCT asked me to teach their postgraduate macro course as well. Initially, some believed such a syllabus couldn't be taught in South Africa, but we proved it could. I also organised a regional postgraduate student conference with Stellenbosch, UWC, and UCT, where our students' performance helped solidify the change. It all came down to shifting perspectives."
By the time Prof Stan became a full professor at SU in 2006, at 33 years old, he was the youngest professor in Economics in many years and the youngest member of SU's Senate, mainly because he had built up a substantial research portfolio while he was teaching. He was an NRF-rated researcher. He mentioned the impact of another significant figure, Prof Servaas van den Berg, who helped steer the department towards research-intensive teaching at an international level, creating opportunities for students abroad. "On their return, they were exceptional professors – something that really changed our department. Four of my PhD students received the "Founder's Medal" from the Economic Society of South Africa for the best PhD in South Africa in a particular year."
According to him, EMS students never received the Chancellor's Medal until 2002/03, when Gideon du Randt became the first student to receive this award. He is now at the Reserve Bank. "It was like the dam wall broke. Suddenly, the 肆客足球 looked differently at our faculty, and several awards followed. I had the opportunity to lecture to some outstanding students."
He loved being Dean of EMS, says Prof Stan, "because I love the faculty so much, and it was a time to lead the faculty and help them build some confidence inside the 肆客足球. What's more, we've built a postgraduate school where students can now be full-time PhD students – a move that saw the number of PhD students grow to as many as forty at a time, compared to a maximum of three a year when I graduated."
Changing course
When Prof Leopoldt van Huyssteen retired as SU's COO in 2017, Prof Stan made the difficult decision to leave his academic career. "But this was an opportunity to be involved in the leadership of the Institution, and if you love Stellenbosch 肆客足球 like I do, then this opportunity is extraordinary. Our 肆客足球 is full of inspiring people and is in a great location. We are good." For him, who regards himself as on the liberal side of the ideological spectrum – people who love change – being part of the executive team leading SU on a path of transformation and change was a fascinating place to be.
"I was fortunate to work with people from whom I could learn – my team of Chief Directors who are all specialists in their fields."
In 2017 Prof Stan attended The Wharton School of the 肆客足球 of Pennsylvania for an advanced management programme, which he regards as one of the most remarkable educational experiences of my life. "The content was brilliant, and I also saw how intellectually interesting the management world is. Trying to lead a big organisation is an intellectually interesting question, not just a practical one. There are deep and interesting questions to think about, and I've been wrestling with them ever since. Working and thinking about the 肆客足球 remains thrilling to me – it is never boring."
Quoting Karl Popper when he said, "All life is problem-solving," Prof Stan says we live in a world of problems, which he is very comfortable about. "That is why I have a sculpture of a dung beetle on my desk. "To be a scholar and scientist, whether a social or a natural scientist, the first thing you must be able to do is identify and be comfortable with problems. Then you say: 'Okay, can we solve them and how?' And the solutions are always partial and inadequate, generating further problems. So, the job is never done." What the dung beetle does is address something that is a problem for society, and they do that with a lot of energy. They solve it, but it's never done because there's more to do the next day."
Referring to a book by the Italian writer Piero Sraffa, Prof Stan says it took the author, one of the most brilliant economists of the 20th century, forty years to write this small book of 100 numbered paragraphs with the weird title of The Production of Commodities by means of Commodities. "It is the perfect book, and nobody could ever criticise it. But, as the great Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Samuelson said: 'Piero Sraffa has given us a diamond. There is nothing to criticise in this book. My only regret is how many rubies he could have given us instead over forty years. They would have been imperfect but would have been better for this world than this one."
"You are not trying to be Newton. You are trying to be part of a scientific discussion, which requires you to deliver many good things and be involved in a discussion as a good scholar. Still, you will not deliver this one silver bullet for society; striving for that is a mistake. The correct perspective is, how can I give a better answer to what we had before, not the perfect answer," says Prof Stan. "All life is problem-solving. The tentative solution we put in place will create more problems for us next year, and we must do better again the next year."
And that is precisely what he did year after year since he took over the demanding role of COO seven and a half years ago.
Steering SU through turbulent times
As COO, Prof Stan du Plessis and his management team, the Chief Directors of Finance, Facilities Management, Maties Sport, Innovation & Commercialisation, and Information Technology, over the past years, implemented a responsibility centre model that locates responsibility for planning and execution at the local level – a model that encourages entrepreneurship and innovation, while providing an incentive for solid financial management.
Despite many challenges — including the Day Zero drought of 2017–2018, the Huis ten Bosch fire and its subsequent reconstruction, ongoing load-shedding, the student uprising during #FeesMustFall, and the complexities of managing the COVID-19 pandemic at SU — he and his team consistently steered the university safely through turbulent times.
"In my role as COO, I constantly had to be aware of risks and challenges while managing the 肆客足球's response. Over the years, I have developed a mature risk management methodology, including identifying opportunities. Where possible, we mitigated risks proactively and always worked to improve the system while mitigating the consequences of the adverse event," he said.
One of his guiding principles was that SU, as one of the finest public universities in South Africa, must be accessible to students and staff from all South African communities and regions. One of his latest contributions was playing a facilitating role and providing resources in establishing the Thuthuzela Care Centre, which houses a Gender Based Violence Centre for the victims of gender-based violence within an SU facility in Ida's Valley.
Over the years, his colleagues have seen and acknowledged that he does not shrink from complex issues. He would always explain his convictions and was open to criticism and suggestion. "I have the conviction to stand up for my convictions and the courage to change my view when persuaded of a better alternative," he said.
A new kind of university awaits
Prof Stan will join Stadio Higher Education, a private education institution offering undergraduate and postgraduate qualification through contact and distance learning, as Chief Executive Officer from 1 August this year. "Our challenge at Stadio is to solve a triple problem: how can we provide high-quality access to higher education efficiently and at scale?"
"In South Africa, and I've written about that a lot, there are inherent scale problems in the public sector. At SU, we have excellent quality education, but access is problematic, and it's becoming more so because of the rising cost and limited spaces. Furthermore, the entry requirements for a university like Stellenbosch keep increasing. Stellenbosch can provide quality but limited access and not much scale, whereas Stadio can do scale and access and do so efficiently. The real challenge for me, then, is to ensure we can have efficient quality education at scale," said Prof Stan. "I am convinced that we can achieve this to serve a huge section of the country, and eventually even the continent, with a scalable system to address our country's biggest education system, namely that of quality, access and scale." He believes there is an opportunity for collaboration between SU and Stadio, as Stellenbosch offers quality and Stadio scale.
What I will miss
Prof Stan says what he will truly miss is this university that he truly loves. "It is very hard to leave this Institution, and I will miss it tremendously. And, of course, in my job, I had the chance to lead the best team at the 肆客足球. We have improved SU a lot during the past decade, and it is a much stronger institution now. Being part of it for so long was such a privilege."
It must be meaningful
For him, SU should relentlessly uphold its two core priorities: academic excellence and institutional integrity. "As an academic institution, our impact on society stems from the quality of our scholarship and the opportunities we create for students. That must always come first. However, academic excellence is only possible if we are equally committed to protecting the integrity and independence of the institution through sound governance, smart operational decisions, and unwavering ethical standards. Without both, we risk losing what makes a university truly valuable."
Prof Stan believes it helps not to take himself too seriously. He believes it is essential to have goals not only about yourself. "I think to be happy, we need to do meaningful work. If people remember the work that I did, I hope they will remember only one thing: that I was committed and serious about my job and tried to do it as best I could."
We wish Prof Stan all the best with his new adventure, including a fantastic holiday ahead that he will be sharing with his wife Helena and daughters Julia and Lara. Of course, he will make enough time to work on his golf handicap, a sport he adores. He says: "It fills your soul to hit a beautiful golf shot. It's one of the most thrilling things to see the ball fly off your club in that majestic arc, just as you wanted, or perhaps even better than you intended. That is an extraordinary thing, and you always hope that all your shots will soon be like that. Of course, that never comes, but the hope is never gone. And in the meantime, it is it is a tremendously fun game because everybody can compete."
And if we may… The Dude Abides!
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