Pictured above: In his address to student mentors, UCT Deputy Vice-Chancellor Professor Anwar Mall spoke of his own experience of being a student and, shared insights obtained during his time as a UCT residence warden.

120 Humanities student mentors were honoured at a special awards evening held on Friday, 2 October. The Humanities Faculty Mentorship Programme was established in 2006 as part of the Faculty’s Extended Degree Programme. Nine years later, this programme is growing and continues to provide peer support to first-year students.

Student mentorship is an integral part of the psycho-social support on offer to all Humanities students. Peer mentorship in particular relies heavily on the commitment and involvement of current senior students. Each year, interested students apply to become mentors for the next academic year and, after a rigorous screening and interview process, they undergo mentorship training at the beginning of the year. Mentorship in the Faculty includes mentors from the Political Studies and Fine Art departments. 

Pictured L: Verusha West-Pillay (2nd on the right) with senior Humanities mentors. Photo Niklas Zimmer

At the 2015 event, mentors received special certificates from The Dean, Professor Sakhela Buhlungu and Deputy Dean Professor Richard Mendelson to acknowledge the contribution they have made. Event organizer and head of the Humanities mentorship programme Verusha West-Pillay, stressed the importance of peer mentorship on campus. She said that many students felt overwhelmed, lost and alone during their first year at university. “In my view, mentorship is the difference between vulnerable students succeeding academically or falling by the wayside. We know that some students don’t make it simply because they feel alone,” she said. West-Pillay is the Faculty’s resident Clinical Social Worker and provides individual counseling to students in crisis.

Keynote speaker, Professor Anwar Mall spoke of his own experience of being a student on campus and then working on the university’s first mentorship programme. In his address, he spoke of the challenges facing the institution when it first opened its doors to all South African students. “During these early days, students at the newly established UCT residences of Forrest Hill and Liesbeek Gardens told us that they were extremely lonely and that they experienced feelings of intense alienation from the rest of the UCT community. This feedback, combined with memories of my own experiences as a student, led me to develop a peer mentorship programme which emphasized a ‘buddy system’ to deal with non-academic matters that impinged on student’s well-being” he said. Professor Mall is a Deputy Vice-Chancellor at the university and a senior surgical researcher in the Faculty of Health Science. He has worked with students (in his capacity as residence warden) at the university for 27 years. 

Left: Humanities Deputy Dean Prof Richard Mendelsohn presented the mentors with special certificates

West-Pillay says that whilst the event is a small token, it is still an important gesture. “Our student mentors do a superb job and they sacrifice a great deal in the process. They don’t get paid for what they do and so their involvement is entirely voluntary. We host this annual event as a way of showing them just how much we appreciate their commitment and as a way of honouring them for the difference that they make in other student’s lives” she said.

Event entertainment was provided by two talented mentors from the South African College of Music (SACM): Thandeka Dladla (second year BMus programme) and Marco Titus (third year BMus performance). All event photographs were taken by final year Humanities student Paris Brummer (BA Fine Art). Visit the Humanities Flickr pages for more photos.