“I always wanted to work at a university”, says Prof. Laetus O.K. Lategan. “I never knew that working at CUT would also allow me to help build a university”.

He joined the Technikon Free State (TFS) in 1998 as Executive Assistant to the Vice-Chancellor. Technikons were non-universities in the South African binary higher education system. When joining the TFS, his job was to assist with the creation of and transition to a university of technology. This became a reality in 2004. Then his responsibility was to lead the development of the research development agenda. For this, he held positions such as acting Deputy Vice-Chancellor: Academic (14 months), Dean: Research and Development, Dean: Research and Innovation, and Senior Director: Research Development and Postgraduate Studies; from October 2021 he reverted to the position of a research professor.

As a lifelong learner, he completed doctoral degrees in philosophy (1992) and dogmatics (1995). In 2021 he completed a third doctorate, this time in community health. In replying why, he responded by saying that he wanted to gain the experience of being a part-time student and to have a lived experience of the challenges of senior degree students.

Apart from being a research manager for most of his professional career, he believed that he had to lead by example hence his active participation in the academic project of the university. As a result, he supervised doctoral and master’s students, published books on research development, applied for research funding and presented the University at national and international associations and committees.

A highlight was being a member of the Doctoral Degrees Reference Group drafting the Qualification Standard of Doctoral Degrees for the Council on Higher Education (CHE). In preparation for the CHE’s review of doctoral standards, he was the lead author of the institutional self-evaluation report. This happened at the beginning of the pandemic. Strange as it may sound, he appreciated the first weeks of “lockdown” as this allowed him to pay full attention to this project.

Another highlight was the start of the University’s DHET-accredited journal, Journal for New Generation Sciences. It was a battle to convince authors from other universities to publish in a first edition without knowing where such a journal would be going. “Looking back”, he says, “we can be proud of our achievements. The JNGS has published 49 editions with 447 articles over the last 21 years” - more than 620 authors from 97 national and international institutions published in the JNGS.

After more than 20 years in the Research Office, he moved on to other responsibilities at the University. As a research professor, he was assigned to gain a deeper understanding of the postgraduate agenda and the capacity that the professors can add to institutional development. Linked to this understanding is to dig deeper into university typologies. With the ongoing emergence of Artificial Intelligence, he is a co-leader of a project on the influence AI will have on the new world of work, specifically the academic enterprise. He is also serving as the Chairperson of the Human Research Ethics Committee of the University.

As an NRF-rated researcher, Prof. Lategan focuses on healthcare ethics and elderly communities. He is also writing opinion articles published in “Volksblad” / Media24.

He says that he lives by the wisdom of the Greek philosophers, notably Hippocrates' “Do no harm” and Socrates' “All I know is that I know nothing!"

When asked, why some people call him by his initials “LOK”, he remarks with a smile: “That is not my name, it is my title!”