On the Feast of St Augustine, 28 August, 2008, Dr Michael van Heerden (pictured right) was installed as the President of St Augustine College. He succeeds Prof. Edith Raidt, the Founding President who retired in April. The Solemn Mass and installation took place in the Chapel at St Augustine in Victory Park in the presence of an august gathering of academics and supporters both from South Africa and abroad. Chairman of the Board of Directors (Council), Dr Conrad Strauss, and Grand Chancellor Archbishop Buti Thlagale conducted the ceremonies of installation, vesting Dr van Heerden in a new academic gown in the purple and gold colours of St Augustine College.

In his homily Archbishop Tlhagale said that while a university aspires to intellectual conversion a Catholic university hopes to achieve in addition a moral conversion and a religious experience, also. In South Africa where corruption is rife at all levels of government education is seen as a means to position where grabbing in not only possible but also okay. By contrast a Catholic university offers an ethic of service. St Augustine has to grow in its mission to build leaders with strong moral values; it should be the light and the salt of the gospel reading. Pictured left with the President Emeritus (Professor Raidt) is Dr Cheryl de la Ray, Guest Speaker on the the occasion of the inauguration. Dr de la Ray, CEO of the Council for Higher Education spoke on the role of private higher education in delivering on the promises of transformation in South Africa.  

In his address to the assembled academic congregation and guests Dr van Heerden pledged that St Augustine would not take the easier route of education as an antidote to ignorance but would adopt the more difficult classical approach of fostering a culture of true learning in which there is a love for the truth and real dialogue between learner and educator based on mutual trust. In a living discourse, dialectic, with learners of African culture educators would have access to African culture and through lived reality explore its enabling and disenabling elements. St Augustine would be a part of the South African community of enquirers and foster, for the common good, the search for truth inscribed in the heart of humans.

After Mass (pictured left) at which the Grand Chancellor presided, the Grand Chancellor led the academic congregation of St Augustine in procession back into the Chapel and duly constituted it. Academic Dean Rex van Vuuren introduced guest speaker Dr Cheryl de la Rey, CEO, Council on Higher Education. In her address she spoke of the need for higher qualifications but warned against market needs being the only driver of curricula and advocated a spiralling model of advancement after graduation.

Prof. Edith Raidt, President Emeritus of St Augustine sketched, with not a little humour, the course of the nine years it has taken St Augustine, which became the first private institution able to confer doctoral degrees, to reach the point of being able to offer two undergraduate degrees in 2009.

During Mass the Archbishop blessed the Grimley Library. This is the oldest theological library in South Africa spanning the 16th to 19th centuries. It was the private library of Bishop Grimley, second bishop of Cape Town, who brought it to South Africa in 1862. In 2008 Archbishop Lawrence Henry bequeathed it to St Augustine where it is housed in the former sacristy above the College Library.