On 14 March 2025, the University of Pretoria celebrated the inauguration of its fourteenth Vice-Chancellor and Principal, Professor Francis Petersen. After the official ceremony, UP Campus Tours had the privilege of hosting a special campus tour for Professor Peterson’s family and friends to showcase our beautiful campus. UPCT awaited their arrival, with a cavalcade of golf carts and an extensive itinerary to crisscross the Hatfield campus highlighting some of UP’s treasures.

The tour started off with a visit to the Old Arts Building, a national monument on campus where we shared the significance of this structure in the University’s 117-year history.  The Old Arts building is one of the first buildings on campus and used to be the place where all lectures were held. It currently houses priceless collections including Mapungubwe artefacts, the Van Tilburg Art Gallery and the World of Ceramics collection, curated by the University of Pretoria Museums.

The group also made a stop at the ‘Giving Garden’, an initiative on campus that fosters agrobiodiversity and provides access to indigenous and orphan crops for home and community gardeners. The garden includes Egyptian Walking Onions, Chaya and Aloe plants. Thereafter the group paid a visit to the Manie van der Schyff botanical garden campus pond, beautifully covered in water lilies, which was the perfect backdrop for a group photo of the VIP guests, capturing a memorable moment of the tour.

The final destination was the UP Javett Bridge Museum where the group had the opportunity to view one of the university’s most treasured collections - the Mapungubwe Gold Collection. To conclude the tour, each participant received a small gift bag with cuttings of Spekboom, Egyptian Walking Onions and Aloe Vera from the Giving Garden.

This campus tour highlighted the University’s commitment to heritage, community engagement and innovation as well as its beautiful learning landscape. It was a true honour for UPCT to take the new Vice-Chancellor and Principal and his guests on this introductory tour.