Archival Significance
Gelfand was one of Rhodesia’s most prolific medical-and-social historians. This institutional history documents the University College of Rhodesia’s founding commitment to non-racial admission at a time when the wider colony operated under segregationist norms, making it a record of one of the era’s genuine institutional exceptions.
Institutional Context
Part of the Zambeziana series, No. 4, published by Mambo Press, Gwelo’s Catholic-run press that produced much of the era’s serious non-fiction on Rhodesian society. Foreword by Principal R. Craig situates the account within the University’s own institutional voice.
Content Summary
Traces the University College of Rhodesia from its 1950s inception to 1966, covering the debates over its non-racial admissions policy, its Special Relation with the University of London, and the pressures placed on that policy by the wider political climate of Federation and UDI.
Research Utility
A primary institutional history for anyone researching higher education, race policy, or the University of Zimbabwe’s predecessor institution, useful alongside contemporary reviews, including in Zambezia, that debate Gelfand’s framing of the College’s non-racial character.
Abantu Archives Note
Held in-house.