In this week’s edition of recognising greatness, we celebrate the success and achievement of Associate Professors Nicolaas Luwes and Letlhoyo Segalo.    

Prof. Nicolaas Luwes obtained his National Diploma: Electrical Engineering in 2002 followed by a Baccalaureus Technologiae: Electrical Engineering in 2003. He then completed his Doctor Technologiae: Electrical Engineering in 2010 and a Postgraduate qualification in Education for Assessment, Teaching and Facilitation the following year. By 2013, he was promoted to Senior Lecturer position that led to his promotion as Associate Professor.

In 2018, Prof. Luwes (lead team manager and designer for the project) and his team of stars participated in the Sasol Solar Car Challenge project. The Sasol Solar Car Challenge is South Africa’s biennial competition for talented engineering teams from around the world to challenge each other to cover as much distance as possible as they travel on public roads from Johannesburg to Stellenbosch. The eight-day event traditionally spans more than 2 500 km, with local and international teams putting newly developed technology to the test as they pass through SA towns.

He was the Vice-Chancellor’s Excellence Award recipient under the Community Engagement category, and his team also won the Sasol Solar Car Challenge community engagement award.

He is active in curriculum development and is a supervisor to 3 doctoral and 7 master’s degrees. He assessed external masters and doctors’ degrees as well as reviewed international papers for publications and served as program committee member for international conferences. He has 40 publications and presented 35 papers at conferences since 2003.

When asked about what his job entails and what he loves about it, Prof. Luwes said he has always been keen on how things and the universe work, which makes learning and construction his hobby.  “I decide to become a lecturer because I wanted to help others to enjoy learning, design, and construction. I also feel one’s legacy is then not only on the projects one has worked on but also, on all the projects done by the students that I assisted. My advice to aspiring lecturers is never stop learning, especially in science and engineering You need to stay up to data with technology, keep yourself updated because technology changes every day and what you know now might not be applicable in the next five years or so, stay relevant and move with times. As the saying goes choose a job you love, and you will never work a day in your life.”   

He thanked CUT for the support and opportunity given to develop him to the person he has become. “I got a good education and support from CUT and feel that I can contribute this same knowledge and more in the same way back to CUT.  My career growth is always for the better especially for my family, but I also feel that I must be a role model them, which might motivate them in their future careers.  I am also grateful for the support I get from RGEMS with CSSC and SOTL for my research projects, they have contributed immensely to my career journey, and I am proud to say that I love what I am doing.”

He sees himself assisting in more supervision roles and publications. “With engineering, one must always evolve with the trends, I suspect there would be more focus on online learning, renewable, and industry4.0. Career success is not my focus, my focus is doing what I love then career success follows automatically.

Prof. Letlhoyo Jacob Segalo started working at CUT as a part-time lecturer teaching in both Foundations of Education in Bachelor of Education programmes and Postgraduate Honours Education programme. He got employed permanently in 2014 and graduated with his Doctoral degree [CUT] the same year. In 2017, he was promoted to Senior Lecturer and Departmental Manager positions in the Department of Mathematics, Science, Technology Education, Language and Social Sciences, Educational and Professional Studies until 2019. His areas of expertise included Education Law and Management, Teacher Education and Research.

He pursued his lecturing career because he has always been intrigued by university life. “As a student at Nelson Mandela, then University of Port Elizabeth, I had a choice of being a Sport Scientist as I was a provincial and national athlete, but I chose to study education because of my passion.” Segalo obtained his Bachelor of Art in Education and Bachelor of Education Honoris. He is also a professional athletics coach in cross-country-, middle- and long-distance coach which he considers part of teaching and development.  “I coached the CUT athletics to national medals in road races and cross country. I also served as a Secretary General of the University Sport Athletics South Africa from 2014-2017. I was fascinated by the university life and homo academicus. Teaching at a university has been an intriguing area, so, being afforded an opportunity to teach at a university was a culmination of my aspiration because I was able to juggle athletics and teaching.”

Prof. Segalo mentioned that although his position comes with its own challenges, he is happy, loves his current position, and is settling in well. “Lecturing at a University might seem glamorous, but there is a lot of hard work, consistency, endurance, resistance and disciple that goes with it. I love working at CUT, it is an emerging small university with latent massive potential that is yet to be realized. It is a university for the future, hence the motto ‘A CUT above the rest’, I sometimes wonder how academics have vouched to see into that philosophy,” he chuckles.

“What I love most about CUT is the policies that afford personnel development opportunities, and I am thankful that I was a beneficiary too. “I have been part of the teaching and learning scholarship, attended doctoral advancement programmes, attended conferences nationally and internationally which opened my eyes to the world of academic connectivity and internationalisation. I am content thus far,” he said.

Asked about the major challenges in his journey to succeed, Prof. Segalo said that his ill health has slowed down his progress as he was hospitalized for the better part of 2020 and 2021. “I was diagnosed with stage three multiple myeloma—cancer of the bone marrow because of poisoning since 2019 and was hospitalized. I am currently on chemo treatment which kept me in hospital for the majority of 2020 and 2021. I was wheelchair-bound and immobile and later in the year, I contracted COVID-19 and was hospitalised for an additional three weeks. It was tough. My physiological response to the treatment was described as “miraculous” and I believe it was God’s intervention and manifestation. On the flip side, I could say that 2020 and 2021 were also years of success because, despite all these setbacks, I successfully graduated a doctoral student and two master’s students. Hopefully the tally will add up to four or five master’s students by the end of 2021. I also discovered that during those hardships, my publications increased and have doubled this year. This is a miracle observation because it was difficult to publish when I was able to do so the previous years.”

Caption

From left: Prof. Nicolaas Luwes, Associate Professor: Electrical Engineering, Bloemfontein Campus and Prof. Letlhoyo Segalo, Associate Professor: Education, Welkom Campus.