Prof Ruth de Villiers receiving the Chancellor’s Award.
It is with mixed emotions that CSET is saying goodbye to Professor Ruth de Villiers who has been with the College for more than 26 years.
When asked about her highlights of her career at Unisa, Prof de Villiers said “ It has been a great privilege to be a member of the School of Computing. I owe my academic growth and development in research to the supportive environment and enabling opportunities there.
And what a wonderful group of colleagues and friends! Over the years, we have experienced many losses of members of staff, some of them being leaders and and it has shaken us… But SoC is a resilient school, it has always bounced back and, as new appointments are made, we gain new colleagues and new leaders who are also special people. There’s a large group working on the Florida Campus, including many of our new staff. We also have a number of young staff, junior lecturers, and are ‘growing our own timber’. Challenges lie ahead with the Big Move, but I look forward with anticipation to see where the School is in five years time.”
Some of Ruth’s particular highlights:
- Being part of CSET’s delegation that visited Ethiopia last year – an eye-opener, and an opportunity to know CSET colleagues better.
- The experience of attending international conferences and seeing parts of the world. I try to take a couple of days leave, if possible, and do some enriching sightseeing at my own expense.
- Authoring stories for Niche and doing photography.
- It was an honor when I was appointed as one of UNISA’s first group of Research Professors.
- When asked about challenges, the energetic Prof De Villiers said “I love doing post-graduate supervision, it is rewarding! One of the main challenges there is that some of the students are third-language English speakers, who struggle with academic writing. So a supervisor works on two fronts – firstly, guiding and supporting on academic matters of structure, research design and content. Secondly, helping them to write it in a way that communicates optimally what they want to say. I wish that UNISA offered additional support in this regard.
Then there are the challenges of frustrations that crop up, often due to circumstances outside our control. I have found that a good way of dealing with these is a sense of humour! And, finally, there are often not enough hours in the day.”
Prof De Villiers has a passion for working with young people. Perhaps it is because of having had four children of her own and a house that she says is always full of their friends. Prof Ruth De Villiers added “I was privileged to lead mentoring in the School for eight years – mentoring of new staff – and a particular involvement with the young academic assistants who passed through our passages. I came to know many of them as friends and have watched their academic growth. Many of them became full time academics or researchers – either at UNISA or elsewhere. In 2011, there was another new venture – the appointment of 16 junior lecturer on contract. My advice to young academics – and to all staff- would be ‘Grab opportunities, especially the unplanned ones, and give it all you’ve got !
When asked about what she will be doing now that she is retiring?
“I will probably be taking a part-time contract in the School of Computing, so hope to stay in touch. But I look forward to having some more time for family, hobbies and the garden. As I mentioned, we have four children and now there are four grandchildren. We seem to be a bunch of academics (!!); my husband was a Prof in architecture at TUKS until his retirement a few years ago, and this year, a son and daughter started work as UNISA academics. So I am leaving two parts of me behind! I also need really a holiday, and we are hoping to have some breakaways in 2013”.
CSET will definitely miss Prof Ruth de Villiers and according to one of her colleague from the School of Computing , Prof Judy van Biljon “ Ruth has been one of the most energetic and hard-working members of the School. She often worked pre-hours, office hours and after hours, in office, from home and even on holiday. And it is was not only quantity, but work of very high quality. We are going to miss Ruth as a permanent staff member, but we are planning to appoint her on contract in a more limited capacity to help with supervision and mentoring in the School.”
As Professor Gugu Moche , Executive Dean of CSET noted, ‘It has always been pleasure to interact with Professor De Villiers and we are proud as a College to have engaged with her on many issues. We respect her for having contributed significantly to the Unisa School of Computing over a considerable length of time and on behalf of CSET management we wish her all the best in this new chapter of her life.”
On behalf of Niche Online, we wish to thank her for all her contributions and we wish her all the best in her future endeavours!
