PIA NÄNNY talked with Dunn-Coetzee about her new challenge and with Cilliers about his plans after retirement.
At the beginning of 2015, Dr Munita Dunn-Coetzee took over from Prof Charl Cilliers as the new Director of the Centre for Student Counselling and Development. This year, Dr Munita Dunn-Coetzee has experienced an eventful year. She not only became engaged and married, but she was also appointed as the new Director of the Centre for Student Counselling and Development (CSCD) at the US.
This ex-resident of the Heemstede Hostel is the third director of the centre and the first woman. She began her career at the CSCD in 2001 with a six-month internship under the guidance of Dr Handré Brand. Amongst others, she received training in crisis management from Louis Vlok, who currently is the head of the 24-hour Crisis Service.
Dunn-Coetzee is no stranger at the US – she is leaving a deputy director's post at the Centre for Student Structures and Communities (CSSC) to join the CSCD.
I am trained as a psychologist and my focus is on the optimisation of potential. This is what I would like to do.
"I enjoyed it very much at the CSSC but am ready for this new challenge. I am trained as a psychologist and my focus is on the optimisation of potential. This is what I would like to do. I still cannot believe I got the post. This is a dream come true, and thanks to the unbelievable experience I gained at the CSSC, I shall be able to make a better contribution here."
She acknowledges, however, that she has great footsteps to follow with Prof Charl Cilliers who retires as Director of the CSCD after 15 years. She describes him as the "face of the CSCD". "He established the brand mark and added the development section. Now I must consider strategically what my role is, where I can add value, and how I can develop what he did."
She believes the CSCD plays an essential role at the US.
"In my opinion, we actually need five such centres. I think we are not always aware of the amount of pressure to which students are exposed, the number of things with which they have to cope, and how unprepared they come to the university.
"Being a student is a challenging developmental phase, and they need more support than one may think."
Her objectives for her term as director are to ensure the university, and specifically the CSCD, is prepared for the diversification of its student corps and adaptable with regard to the needs of the student generation. It is important that the service delivery of a centre should be relevant to the needs of the student corps, she said.
She likes the fact that her work is human centred and that she can play a role to ensure students' experiences at the university are as wonderful, optimal and successful as they can be.
In October, Dunn-Coetzee married Anthonie Coetzee, a cattle farmer of the Free State who was appointed as manager of Maties Milk on the Welgevallen Experimental Farm. His Jack Russel and her two cats are living with them in Somerset-West.
Dr Handré Brand retires
Dr Handré Brand, Director: Department for Academic Counselling and Career Development at the CSCD, is also leaving this centre at the end of the year.
He was attached to the CSCD for 17 years, but his roots at the US lie much deeper. Before joining the CSCD, from 1976 until 1997, he simultaneously was a senior lecturer at the Department of Psychology, served as Director of the Unit for Counselling Psychology, and was chairperson of the Centre for Psychological Services and Training.
"I was privileged to be able to complete a very stimulating career in the context of various roles at the US," he said. To him, it is goodbye but not farewell. He is becoming involved again under the banner of an InnovUS project titled "Abstrahere".
Prof Charl paved the way
It is not an unfamiliar sight to see Prof Charl Cilliers of the Centre for Student Counselling and Development (CSCD) with a Bonsai tree in his hands. Since Prof Andreas van Wyk's time, he sees to it that there is a small Bonsai tree in the management wing of the US, and he nurses and exchanges the small trees. He has 86 small trees at his home, and next year after his retirement in December, he will possibly be able to pay more attention to the trees.
"I like the word 'retire'," he says. "It only means you put on another wheel."
However, it is also not to say, because Cilliers does not regard retirement as a time of doing nothing. It is not in his nature to sit still, he says, and he already wants to take on a number of possible things next year.
"I like the word 'retire'," he says. "It only means you put on another wheel."
Cilliers has been attached to the US since 1981 (and with the money he received with his long service award, he erected a little Chinese roof for his Bonsai trees). In 1999, he was appointed first as the director of what was known at the time as the Centre for Student Counselling (CSC).
He literally added the D to CSCD when he worked with a team of colleagues to establish the practice of student development at the CSCD formally. Later, as the convenor of a project team, he operationally described and scientifically grounded the term "student development".
"I am a great advocate of the development of potential," he says; therefore, the Wellness Project is the thing about which he "feels best" after his years at the CSCD. "It is amazing what the Wellness Project can do to enhance human development."
About Dr Munita Dunn-Coetzee, his successor, he says, "She has much more than is required to be successful in the post, and I am unbelievably thankful for her appointment."
His advice to her is continue promoting the wellness of the CSCD personnel actively to live the example the CSCD is trying to advocate in doing so.
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