The Rand Afrikaans University (RAU) was a prominent South African institution of higher education and research that served the greater

Johannesburg Johannesburg ( , , ; Zulu language, Zulu and xh, eGoli ), colloquially known as Jozi, Joburg, or "The City of Gold", is the largest city in South Africa, classified as a Megacity#List of megacities, megacity, and is List of urban areas by p ...

area and surroundings from 1967 to 2004. It has since merged with the Technikon Witwatersrand and two campuses of Vista University to form the

University of Johannesburg The University of Johannesburg (UJ) is a public university located in Johannesburg, South Africa. The University of Johannesburg came into existence on 1 January 2005 as the result of a merger between the Rand Afrikaans University (RAU), the ...

Origins

On 5 November 1968, 468 delegates at a conference unanimously accepted a motion to establish an Afrikaans University. An act of Parliament was promulgated on 4 August 1965 to establish such a university in Johannesburg. Rand Afrikaans University (RAU) was founded as an

Afrikaans language Afrikaans (, ) is a West Germanic language that evolved in the Dutch Cape Colony from the Dutch vernacular of Holland proper (i.e., the Hollandic dialect) used by Dutch, French, and German settlers and their enslaved people. Afrikaans gr ...

university in 1967 with just over 700 registered students. The first campus was situated in a brewery in

Braamfontein Braamfontein (English: ''blackberry spring'', or more prosaicly ''blackberry springs''; also known as Braam) is a central suburb of Johannesburg, in South Africa, seat of the Constitutional Court of South Africa and some of South Africa's major ...

. The RAU was officially opened on 24 February 1968. The first chancellor of the University was Dr

Nicolaas Diederichs Nicolaas Johannes "Nico" Diederichs (17 November 1903, Ladybrand – 21 August 1978) served as the third state president of South Africa from 1975 to 1978. Education and career After completing school, he attended Grey University College betwee ...

(then Minister of Finance of South Africa) and the first rector was Prof

Gerrit Viljoen Gerrit Van Niekerk Viljoen (11 September 1926 in Cape Town – 29 March 2009) was a South African government minister and member of the National Party. He was chair of the Broederbond from 1974 to 1980, Administrator-General of South We ...

. The first women's residence was named "Amper Daar" (Almost there) and the first hostel for men "Afslaan" (Tee off), after the golf course on which it was built. Over time the university evolved to a dual medium institution, offering nearly all degree courses in both Afrikaans and English.

Faculties

The faculties of the RAU were as follows: *Faculty of

Commerce Commerce is the large-scale organized system of activities, functions, procedures and institutions directly and indirectly related to the exchange (buying and selling) of goods and services among two or more parties within local, regional, natio ...

and

Economics Economics () is the social science that studies the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. Economics focuses on the behaviour and interactions of economic agents and how economies work. Microeconomics anal ...

*Faculty of

Law Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior,Robertson, ''Crimes against humanity'', 90. with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been vario ...

*Faculty of

Science Science is a systematic endeavor that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe. Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earliest archeological evidence ...

*Faculty of

Engineering Engineering is the use of scientific principles to design and build machines, structures, and other items, including bridges, tunnels, roads, vehicles, and buildings. The discipline of engineering encompasses a broad range of more speciali ...

*Faculty of

Arts The arts are a very wide range of human practices of creative expression, storytelling and cultural participation. They encompass multiple diverse and plural modes of thinking, doing and being, in an extremely broad range of media. Both ...

*Faculty of

Health Sciences The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to health sciences: Health sciences are those sciences which focus on health, or health care, as core parts of their subject matter. Health sciences relate to multiple a ...

*Faculty of Education and Nursing

Location

What was the main campus is now the APK

Kingsway Campus Auckland Park Kingsway Campus Auckland Park, also known as APK, is the largest and most populated of the four campuses of the University of Johannesburg. It is also the seat of the administration and governance body of the university. The campus was formerly t ...

of the

(UJ) and is situated in

Auckland Park Auckland Park is a suburb A suburb (more broadly suburban area) is an area within a metropolitan area, which may include commercial and mixed-use, that is primarily a residential area. A suburb can exist either as part of a large ...

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring coun ...

. Satellite campuses in

Soweto Soweto () is a township of the City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality in Gauteng, South Africa, bordering the city's mining belt in the south. Its name is an English syllabic abbreviation for ''South Western Townships''. Formerly a ...

and

Doornfontein Doornfontein is an inner-city suburb of Johannesburg, South Africa, located to the east of the city centre, Region 8. History The area, whose name means "thorn fountain", was originally the southern part of a farm owned by Frederick Jacobus Bez ...

are now APB, DFC and SWC campuses of UJ.

Leaders

Rector of the University Chancellor of the University

Merger

On 1 January 2005, Rand Afrikaans University, Technikon Witwatersrand and some campuses of the Vista University ceased to exist as such, when they merged to become the

, as part of a broader reorganisation of South African universities. The outgoing and final vice chancellor of the University was Prof Roux Botha.

References

Afrikaner culture in Johannesburg Universities in Gauteng Schools in Johannesburg Defunct universities and colleges in South Africa Educational institutions established in 1967 Educational institutions disestablished in 2005 {{SouthAfrica-university-stub