Martin Hall (born in

Guildford Guildford () is a town in west Surrey, England, around south-west of central London. As of the 2011 census, the town has a population of about 77,000 and is the seat of the wider Borough of Guildford, which had around inhabitants in . The nam ...

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

) is a British-South African academic and educationalist who has written extensively on South African history, culture and higher education policy. He is a former Vice Chancellor of the University of Salford and is currently serving as the acting Deputy Vice-Chancellor (DVC): Transformation at the

University of Cape Town The University of Cape Town (UCT) (, ) is a public university, public research university in Cape Town, South Africa. Established in 1829 as the South African College, it was granted full university status in 1918, making it the oldest univer ...

Early life

Hall studied at Chichester High School For Boys, one of the two state schools in the United Kingdom at the time that prepared students for Oxbridge admission. He was the first in his family to complete university. He completed his bachelor's degree in

archaeology Archaeology or archeology is the study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of Artifact (archaeology), artifacts, architecture, biofact (archaeology), biofacts or ecofacts, ...

and

anthropology Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, society, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including archaic humans. Social anthropology studies patterns of behav ...

Cambridge University The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, wo ...

in 1974.

Early career

He worked firstly in

Lesotho Lesotho, formally the Kingdom of Lesotho and formerly known as Basutoland, is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. Entirely surrounded by South Africa, it is the largest of only three sovereign enclave and exclave, enclaves in the world, t ...

in the area of archaeological excavation and then in London for the Southwark Archaeological Rescue Unit. He moved to South Africa in 1975 where he worked for five years as an ethnoarchaeologist in the Natal Museum in Pietermaritzburg. He completed his doctoral studies at Cambridge in 1980 and moved to

Cape Town Cape Town is the legislature, legislative capital city, capital of South Africa. It is the country's oldest city and the seat of the Parliament of South Africa. Cape Town is the country's List of municipalities in South Africa, second-largest ...

in the same year. He then became Chief Professional Officer for the Department of Archaeology at the South African Museum.

University of Cape Town

He joined the

Department of Archaeology in 1983 and was promoted from Associate Professor to Professor of Historical Archaeology, becoming in due course the head of department. In 1983 he became Director of the Centre for African Studies He was Director of the Multimedia Education Group from 1997–2001 at UCT. In 1998, he was appointed as a Fellow of the University of Cape Town, and the following year became the inaugural Dean of the Higher Education Development Unit, charged with coordinating support for students from underprivileged backgrounds. In 1999, he was appointed as President of the World Archaeological Congress and also served as General Secretary of the South African Archaeological Society. In 2002, he was promoted to deputy vice-chancellor and held this position for six years with responsibilities for strategic, academic and budget planning. He stepped down from this position at the end of August 2008 to take up a position at the Graduate School of Business. He is a fellow of the Royal Society of South Africa. He is part of Flooved advisory board. He was appointed as the acting Deputy Vice-Chancellor (DVC): Transformation at the

after Loretta Ferris decided not to stand for another term.

University of Salford

Short-listed for the position of Chancellor at the University of Massachusetts Ahmherst, Hall was however unsuccessful. He was to be appointed a few months later, in October 2008, as the next vice-chancellor. He arrived at Salford in April 2009 as vice-chancellor designate and officially took up the post on 1 August 2009. Hall stated in June 2013 that Salford had had "too aggressive an industrial-relations stance in previous years."

Personal life

Hall holds joint British and South African citizenship. His wife, Professor Brenda Cooper, is an academic specialising in post-colonial and African literature. They have three children.

References

Publications

*Hall, Martin 2000. "Archaeology and the Modern World: Colonial Transcripts in South Africa and the Chesapeake“ London: Routledge *Hall, Martin 2009. "Nothing is different but everything’s changed". In The Next Twenty Five Years? Affirmative Action and Higher Education in the United States and South Africa. *Edited by Martin Hall, Marvin Krislov and David L. Featherman. University of Michigan Press. *Hall, Martin 2009. "New knowledge and the university". '' Anthropology Southern Africa'', 32 (1 and 2): 69–86. *Hall, Martin. 1987. ''Farmers, Kings, and Traders: The People of Southern Africa,'' ''200-1860''. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Hall, Martin 1952 births Living people Academics of the University of Salford British expatriates in South Africa South African archaeologists South African educational theorists Academic staff of the University of Cape Town Vice-chancellors of the University of Salford Fellows of the Royal Society of South Africa Alumni of the University of Cambridge Writers from Guildford