Nelson Mandela University

Nelson Mandela University (formerly known as the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University) is a South African university with its main administration in the coastal city of Port Elizabeth. Nelson Mandela University was founded through a merger of three institutions in January 2005, but its history dates back to 1882, with the foundation of the Port Elizabeth Art School. On 20 July 2017, Nelson Mandela University was officially renamed: the only university in the world to carry the name of Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela. With this name we will be honouring Nelson Mandela by leading our University into a new era of powerful innovation and change. It is an era where our South African identity combines global self-assuredness with locally actualised intellectual approaches and practices applied to economies, environments, lifestyles, cultures and traditions. It is an era of respect and sharing with the aim of advancing the needs, lives and aspirations of all our people. We assume the responsibility of being able to stand up and say what our University is doing to improve society and to change the world for the better, which Nelson Mandela dedicated his life to doing. “For to be free is not merely to cast off one's chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.” We are honoured that the naming of our University has the full support of Mandela’s eldest grandson, Mandla Mandela, the head of the Mvezo Traditional Council and the custodian of the family. It is our unique privilege as a University to pay tribute to Nelson Mandela, a man who became the world’s moral compass and one of the greatest leaders we have ever known. Who we are and what we are becoming as an innovative 21st century institution of higher learning is our way of taking responsibility for the Mandela legacy and ensuring that it is reflected in the way that we teach, learn, do research, engage with our communities, and work and live as students, staff, alumni and our partners.