Growing up as the son and grandson of medical doctors, but wanted to become an architect. As a compromise he became a dentist and has in the course of his career, worked in the corporate sector and as an independent health management consultant.
He is Prof Vic Exner, the newly-appointed Executive Dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences at Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, Prof Exner brings with him a wealth of experience, having been the first Dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences of the University of Johannesburg (UJ). He is experienced in project management, needs analysis and co-ordination, is fully bilingual in English and Afrikaans and can understand some Zulu having grown up on a mission station in Kwazulu-Natal in the sixties.
Exner is looking forward to the opportunities and challenges the position brings.
“I believe that the faculty should be more prominent in the university community and beyond. It is well-positioned and the province needs the faculty and the university,” he says.
Before joining NMMU, Prof Exner was a senior stomatologist at the University of the Western Cape Dental Faculty where he enjoyed working in the disadvantaged communities of Cape Town with dental students. He started his full-time academic life at UWC in 1982 but left for Medunsa and a promotion to principal stomatologist in 1984, associate professor in 1985 and to professor/chief stomatologist in 1991. He then transferred to Wits in 1996 as head of the department of Restorative Dentistry.
“I am excited about transformation. I’ve lived a long life of transformation. What is also good is that the university’s transformation plan is part of the entire strategic plan.”
He opted for early retirement in 2006 and joined his wife, Dr Rosemary Exner, an educational psychologist at UCT, and their three sons in Cape Town.
“I might have retired early from the university, but cannot sit and do nothing. I believe my experience in and outside of academia will be very useful in this position.”
Prof Exner grew up in rural Kwazulu-Natal where his father was a missionary doctor. He is the eldest of five children of an Afrikaans mother and German father, who are both well into their eighties.
When not working Prof Exner is an active runner, gardener, chef and house renovator, who is already looking for a house to buy and restore.
Prof Vic Exner, the newly-appointed Executive Dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences at Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University
