Commitment, courage and time to pause

The University of Cape Town’s (UCT) academic heads of department (HoDs) dinner served as a token of gratitude from Vice-Chancellor (VC) interim Emeritus Professor Daya Reddy, where he encouraged leaders to allow themselves to “pause”.

Hosted on Monday, 29 July, at the Southern Sun in Newlands, Cape Town, Emeritus Professor Reddy reminded colleagues that his final day of leading the institution was on the horizon.

“The academic departments really are the core of the institution; it’s where our disciplines reside. The HoDs are the custodians of the discipline. We talk a lot in the university, rightly, about the importance of multidisciplinary work, but you can’t have successful and effective multi-disciplinarity without a solid disciplinary base,” Reddy noted.

He said he was chuffed with their unwavering commitment to other facets of their work like nurturing younger academics and colleagues on their path to becoming established teachers or researchers and allowing them to excel.

“We witness the resilience of the institution, mainly through our colleagues in the face of challenges.”

Reddy spoke about the notion of fragility and resilience. “Fragility of our institution: how easy it can be to break things and how difficult, if possible at all, to fix them. On the other hand, we witness the resilience of the institution, mainly through our colleagues in the face of challenges. I do remain very optimistic about people – from staff to students – who are part of UCT and the important role you heads play in not only ensuring the institution functions, but that it thrives, [thereby] reviving the spirit of the institution.”

To toast the evening and as a tribute to the HoDs, Reddy said: “It’s been a real privilege to have served as interim VC over the last months. I certainly acknowledge your forbearing, commitment and courage and your willingness to serve. Above all, I sincerely thank you for your support. To our HoDs: to your successes, strength and wisdom that you’ve displayed to the university and the scholarship you bring every step of the way.”

Leadership development specialist Hani du Toit spoke about what she called “permission to pause”. She was scheduled to lead the HoDs workshop, which usually followed the dinner; however, it has been postponed to a later date. This development allowed Du Toit to give a teaser of what the subject matter of the workshop would be: practising stillness and finding quiet time amid life’s unforgiving demands.

She started by putting some probing questions to the audience: “What are you giving yourself permission to do amid the busyness you find yourself in? Are you allowing yourself to pause? And if you were given that opportunity, how would you use it? Would you use it trying to fill it with other things you need to get done? I want to encourage you to allow yourself time to pause and to consider what would emerge in the quiet of your still mind; in the stillness of your rested body.”

Du Toit continued: “We’re in a constant cycle of go, go, go and the lie we tell ourselves is that if we do it faster and got it done, we’d have time to pause. I’ve had to recognise the social conditioning that being busy, in demand and apparently indispensable is equated in our society with being important, wanted and valued, but I knew this was not true. So, I confronted my own need for those things and my own relationship with those associations.

“In the stillness of the pause, we can connect with our own inner world, sync our body, heart and minds and our soul. It takes practise of self-observation, reflection and catching yourself when you lapse. “