At the recent colloquium on Exploring Preparedness for Postgraduate Studies, Professor Sioux McKenna of Rhodes University interrupted keynote speaker Dr Nompilo Tshuma as she stood before her PowerPoint presentation to start her keynote address.
“So, did you write this yourself?” she asked.
The 100 or so delegates just laughed, and so did Tshuma. The delegates were research leaders from almost all of South Africa’s 26 public universities, a few private higher education institutions, representatives of the Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET) and Universities South Africa (USAf).