Cape Town - He has been living in a temporary home with most of his possessions in storage, but that’s probably the easiest part of the trip for Professor Tyrone Pretorius.
Pretorius has just arrived in Cape Town before beginning a new chapter in his career that will place him at the helm of the University of the Western Cape.
He has had a “chaotic” and “quite intense” week.
He spent it finishing up work from his previous position as vice-principal: academic at the University of Pretoria, while shuttling between his storage unit and the holiday apartment he is staying in.
In January, he will officially take over from the outgoing rector and vice-chancellor at UWC, Professor Brian O’Connell.
Pretorius starts under his interim title, vice-chancellor-designate, on Monday.
He said he was “cautiously excited” about his new role and grateful he had a four-month induction to work out his plans.
“It would be premature of me to think about plans when my first priority should be to get to know the strengths, weaknesses and opportunities at UWC,” he told the Cape Times on Sunday, taking time out from watching the Tottenham and Liverpool match to speak about his new role.
UWC is by no means new territory for him. He completed one of his two doctorates there, and was dean of community and health sciences at the institution for about 10 years before becoming deputy vice-chancellor.
His involvement with UWC has spanned “slightly more than 20 years”.
During his time as deputy vice-chancellor, he worked with O’Connell for about five years. Now he will be working with him again - participating in all committees, planning and other processes that fall under his new role.
He said he had found O’Connell inspiring and looked forward to shadowing him.
“Education is one of the most significant projects of a developing nation and to be a good educator, you have to be an inspirational figure,” said Pretorius, adding that he too hoped to be an inspiration to his colleagues and to the students.
Pretorius left UWC in 2005 to work for Monash South Africa in Joburg, a campus of Australia’s Monash University, and later moved to the University of Pretoria.
Pretorius said UWC enjoyed a good reputation, but one of the things he would like to do was translate its public image into a more international one.
He believed that to be an outstanding university, it was essential to be able to have international networks for the institution’s scientists and researchers to “plug into”.
With regard to his leadership style, he said he subscribed to the idea that “leadership is about values”.
He believed in the saying that “to lead is to serve”.
In the context of a university it would be to “serve the university’s goals and what the university aspires to”, he said.
Cape Times