According to Dorette Visser Parsons, director of Golden Key South Africa, each participating campus around the globe awards honorary membership to university staff as well as corporate and community leaders. In addition to their individual accomplishments, these members are chosen by the student chapters based on their personal interest and support of academic excellence, leadership or community service.
The staff members who received honorary membership are: Lelanie van Zyl (SALA), Prof Ilyayambwa Mwanawina (Faculty of Law), Roché Artz (Faculty of Humanities) and TK Pooe (Faculty of Humanities).
- Lelanie van Zyl
Lelanie van Zyl grew up and completed her school career in Vanderbijlpark. She studied at the campus in Vanderbijlpark and was awarded her first degree – a BA in industrial psychology and labour relations – with distinction in 2005. She was also announced as the Top Performer during her graduation. She completed her honours degree in 2006 – also with distinction.
While working towards her honours degree she served as a research assistant, facilitator, editorial secretary for an international interdisciplinary journal and administrative assistant for the former Psychology Department. She also worked as a course compilation and SETA consultant for an established HR company.
In 2006 she started studying towards her master’s degree and although she still worked as the departmental administrative assistant, she also started lecturing various psychology modules. Concurrently she also guest lectured psychology, industrial psychology and life skills at the University of the Free State.
She received her MA degree in industrial psychology in 2009, again with distinction, and was awarded honorary academic colours. She continued on the above mentioned career path until 2012 when she was appointed as faculty manager for the Faculty of Humanities. She is currently the faculty manager for five faculties, head of two departments and acting director of SALA on the campus in Vanderbijlpark. She hopes to commence with her PhD studies in the near future.
- Prof Ilyayambwa Mwanawina
Professor Ilyayambwa Mwanawina – who is affectionately known as Prof M amongst the students – was born in Lusaka, Zambia. His family moved to Kanye, a small village south of Botswana when he was seven years old. He completed his primary, junior and high school education in Kanye, and during these years of schooling enjoyed participating in debates and science projects. He is an alumnus of the NWU’s campus in Mahikeng, where he completed his undergraduate, postgraduate and doctoral studies in law. During his studies, he represented the NWU’s Faculty of Law in various countries and platforms.
When Prof Mwanawina received confirmation of his promotion to associate professor, he was only 30 years old. He has acted in various roles including that of faculty coordinator, deputy director and subject chair. At present he is the project manager for the NWU’s LLB Improvement Plan. He has received various awards and recognitions, including the NWU Institutional Teaching Excellence Award and the Excellence in Research Merit Award. Driven by his passion for the African renaissance and the advancement of society, he continues to publish on topics related to regional integration, governance and human rights.
- Roché Artz
Roché was born and raised in Port Elizabeth, and later moved to the Sasolburg district. She is a junior lecturer in the School of Communication Sciences on the campus in Vanderbijlpark and started her academic career in July 2015. The modules she teaches include: introduction to journalism, corporate communication: relationship management, communication theory and corporate media and writing.
She completed her undergraduate and honours degree in communication sciences, majoring in journalism and media studies. At present she is working towards completing her master’s degree in the discipline of media studies with a particular focus on social transformation. She seeks to discover whether Twitter could be regarded as the agenda-setter during the #FeesMustFall campaign. Apart from her master’s degree, she is also taking part in the NWU’s Scholarship of Teaching and Learning.
- TK Pooe
As a lecturer in public administration and governance, TK is a public policy specialist focusing on the following research fields: local economic development (LED), economic development policy, scenario planning and failure analysis within government.
Before joining the NWU, TK was appointed as a lecturer at the University of KwaZulu Natal (Howard College), worked as a policy research consultant at the Gauteng Provincial Legislature, and conducted research for the Integrated Development Planning Unit at the Sedibeng district municipality.
He has recently completed and led a research project exploring the socio-economic impact of illicit financial flows (IFF) in the mining sector of Southern African states. In addition to this, he collaborated on scenario-planning projects looking at the state of South Africa’s mining, energy and business sectors at the Gordon Institute of Business Science. He holds a master’s degree in public policy and is a research fellow of the South African Humanities Deans Association.
