The Diocesan College Council is delighted to announce the appointment of Grant Nupen as Principal of the School. Grant, who is currently Headmaster of St Alban’s College, Pretoria, which position he has filled since July 1997, will take up his responsibilities during the course of our second term in 2001. We are grateful to the Council of St Alban’s for releasing Grant at the end of their first term, subject to him possibly remaining in Pretoria for a handover period of an additional month, should their Council consider this necessary.

This appointment follows a diligent and thorough search and selection process, which has involved all the school’s constituencies, in different ways and at various stages of the process.

Grant was schooled at Waterkloof House Preparatory School, or WHPS as it is affectionately known, and then at St Alban’s where in his final year he was Head of School, Captain of cricket, rugby and hockey and represented the North Eastern Transvaal Nuffield Cricket XI. He graduated with a Bachelor of Commerce degree from Rhodes with distinction in accounting and then obtained his HED from UNISA with distinction in the Methodology of Accounting and Business Economics.

Grant has broad teaching experience and his career has taken him from an assistant master position at St Andrew’s Preparatory School, Grahamstown, while he was studying at Rhodes, to St Peter’s in Rivonia from 1974 to 1977, during which time he was awarded a British Council Visitorship to the United Kingdom. In 1978 he was appointed Deputy Headmaster of The Ridge School in Johannesburg and then to the position of Headmaster from September 1979 until the end of 1985. Arising out of a concern for the direction that traditional white education was taking, he left The Ridge and became Director in the Transvaal and Northern Transvaal of the Leaf Organization and Headmaster of St Luke’s Senior College. This was followed by a period with the Mast Organisation when Grant consulted to companies in the private sector on education issues. While with the Mast Group he was invited by St Alban’s to assume the position of Director of Development with responsibility for strategic planning, outreach and IT development. Grant held this position for some 6 years before assuming the role of Headmaster.

Grant is married to Rosemary, daughter of Herbie Selfe, who, retired after a long teaching career as deputy headmaster at the Prep and was subsequently Secretary of the OD Union, and his wife Joan. By association, already, he has had a long involvement with Bishops. They have four children, the youngest of whom will become a pupil of the College. Both Grant and Rosemary are committed and active Christians.He is a Lay Minister in his local Anglican Parish.