The sight of students arriving hungry, exhausted, and dehydrated has weighed heavily on Dr Anette Mienie, Acting Vice-Chancellor and Principal of Mangosuthu University of Technology. For her, leadership is lived, visible, and deeply human.
In recent days, Dr Mienie has been a constant presence on campus, taking walkabouts, engaging directly with students, and listening carefully to their stories. Her emotional intelligence is unmistakable. With a quiet, motherly touch, she asked where students had travelled from, how long the journey had taken, and how long they had been waiting to be assisted.
One such encounter was with Olwethu, a first-year student from KwaMhlabuyalingana in the far north of KwaZulu-Natal. Olwethu’s journey, like many others, was marked by determination and sacrifice. “We left home in the afternoon by taxi,” Olwethu explained, “then had to take a meter taxi from town to the University. We arrived at 1 am on Monday, 19 January 2026, hoping to be first in the queue. But when we got here, there were already hundreds of students ahead of us—everyone with the same hope.”
These conversations provided Dr Mienie with first-hand insight into the realities students were facing, particularly as technical glitches on the first day of registration slowed processes and extended waiting times. What she saw and heard confirmed what data alone could not: the University needed to mobilise additional support to ensure that MUT truly felt like a home away from home.
Acting swiftly, Dr Mienie took these concerns to the University’s Executive Management Committee (EMC). Together, the executive supported a motion to ensure that students were immediately accommodated and provided with meals, prioritising dignity, safety, and care during a critical transition period.
“I could not, for the life of me, leave students stranded,” said Dr Mienie. “I am deeply grateful for the collective effort and responsiveness of the executive. Sometimes, it is human-to-human engagement that makes all the difference.”
In that moment, leadership was not measured by policy alone, but by compassion in action—and by an Institution willing to listen, respond, and stand firmly alongside its students.