[8] The Johannesburg municipality donated a site in Milner Park, north-west of Braamfontein, to the new institution as its campus and construction began the same year, on 4 October.

The first Chancellor of the new university was Prince Arthur of Connaught and the first Principal (a position that would be merged with that of Vice-Chancellor in 1948)[9] was Professor Jan Hofmeyr.

[12] In 1923, the university began moving into the new campus, slowly vacating its former premises on Ellof Street for the first completed building in Milner Park: the Botany and Zoology Block.

In 1925, the Prince of Wales (the future Edward VIII) officially opened Central Block (which includes the Great Hall).

This growth led to accommodation problems, which were temporarily resolved by the construction of wood and galvanised-iron huts in the centre of the campus (which remained in use until 1972).

[13] In 1948 the National Party (NP) was voted into power by South Africa's white electorate, and apartheid (Afrikaans for "separateness") policies started to become law.

In 1964, the medical library and administrative offices of the Faculty of Medicine moved to Esselen Street, in the Hillbrow district of Johannesburg.

This resulted in numerous police invasions of campus to break up peaceful protests, as well as the banning, deportation and detention of many students and staff.

With a strongly entrenched "[c]olonial mentality" at Wits, along with "high capitalism, the new liberalism and communism of a South African kind, combined with entrenched white settler mores (particularly in the Engineering and Science faculties) ... the university ... was an arena of conflicting positions generally contained within polite academic conventions".

[15] The University of the Witwatersrand is dedicated to the acquisition, advancement and imparting of knowledge through the pursuit of truth in free and open debate, in the undertaking of research, in scholarly discourse and in balanced, dispassionate teaching.

In the interests of all in this land, and in the knowledge of the justice of our cause, we dedicate ourselves to unremitting opposition to these intended restraints and to the restoration of our autonomy.The 1970s saw the construction of Jubilee Hall and the Wartenweiler Library, as well as the opening of the Tandem Accelerator; the first, and to date only, nuclear facility at a South African university.

POW, which had involved interviews with members of organisations among disadvantaged communities in the PWV area, international academics, students and staff at Wits, and even a meeting with the then-banned ANC in Lusaka, revealed that to many in the surrounding disadvantaged communities, there was a perception of Wits as an elitist institution dominated by white interests.

[14] However, instead of translating POW's proposals into institutional plans for transformation, Wits reacted in a defensive manner and refused to even acknowledge many of the criticisms that had been raised.

The contradiction between internal and external perceptions would increasingly undermine the unity of the university community, as progressive elements on campus began to take more radical positions in opposition to apartheid.

[20] The then-vice-chancellor, Professor Colin Bundy, said in defence of Wits 2001 that "[t]his fundamental reorganisation of both academic activities and support services will equip the university for the challenges of higher education in the 21st Century".

The silver wavy bars on the lower section of the shield represent the Vaal and Limpopo rivers which form the northern and southern borders of the Witwatersrand gold fields.

The historic East Campus is primarily the home of the faculties of Science and Humanities, as well as the University Council, Senate and management.

WEC boasts three female residences, forming the Highfield cluster, namely Girton, Medhurst and Reith Hall.

East of WEC (across York Road), lies Wits Medical Campus which is the administration and academic centre of the Faculty of Health Sciences.

The University of the Witwatersrand is home to the Wits Institute of Social and Economic Research (WiSER), founded in 2001 by Deborah Posel.

[45] The university's archaeology and palaeontology departments, within the School of Geosciences of the Faculty of Science, continue to play a leading part in excavations of the site; and Wits retains ownership of Sterkfontein's intellectual rights.

The Roberts-Pager Collection of Khoisan rock art copies is located in the Van Riet Lowe building on East Campus.

[49] The Johannesburg Planetarium is often consulted by the media, and the public, in order to explain unusual occurrences in the skies over South Africa.

The ground floor of University Corner was selected as the site for the new Wits Art Museum, which now houses the collections after it was completed and launched in 2012.

[53] The Wits Theatre is a performing arts complex within the university, although it also caters for professional companies, dance studios and schools.

It is based in the Faculty of Humanities and aims to build capacity to meet the challenges of diverse societies, especially in post-apartheid South Africa through interdisciplinary postgraduate education and research.

This Faculty is based in the South West Engineering Building on East Campus[57] and consists of the schools of Social Sciences, Literature and Language Studies, Human and Community Development, Arts, and Education.

According to the Mail & Guardian the university entered into an agreement in 2001 with a private developer, iProp, to build a shopping centre, offices, light industry and medium and high-density housing on the property.

For this reason, the university's admission policies promote diversity and Black Economic Empowerment by admitting students from a wide range of backgrounds.

These policies enable the university to assemble a diverse student body that reflects the demographic profile of South Africa's Gauteng region across a wide array of traits, including race, gender, socio-economic background, urban and rural geographic origin, culture, ethnicity, disability, religion, sexual orientation, national origin, and other traits.