Tributes to Dr Derek Henderson (1947)

Tribute to Derek Henderson by his daughter, Margie Keeton
Tuesday 18th August 2009

Derek Scott Henderson was born on 28th October 1929 in the same week as the tumultuous Stock Exchange crash which gave rise to the Great Depression. The Depression was to mark his early years in a very direct way as the family struggled financially and his parents made great sacrifices to send their four children to private schools. At one stage his father was spending more than two-thirds of his salary on school fees.

Dad was the first born and as parents are wont to do, there were predictions of wondrous achievements for him, including that he was a Rhodes Scholar in the making! Well that one they got right! Whether they also saw him as a future Vice-Chancellor I can’t say, but higher education was in his genes – his grandfather White a leading metallurgist was one of the first people awarded an honorary doctorate by Wits and his mother had an Honours degree in classics, a rare achievement for women in the 1920s. Added encouragement to excel came from his father whose own education had been cut short when funds earmarked for schooling in England were stolen from his widowed mother.

Not surprisingly, dad placed huge store by education. He was fortunate enough and smart enough to study at five very special educational institutions. He was initially home schooled by his mother. In January 1939 his parents took him to St John’s College in Houghton for an interview. It was the first time dad had ever worn shoes and seeing his discomfort a kindly housemaster told him to take them off. Why had they come so late to enrol their boy for the coming school year the headmaster asked – I first needed to see what increase I would be given his father replied. Any doubt disappeared when his IQ was tested and he was admitted on the turn.

His start at St John’s was discouraging. Used only to writing in pencil, dad struggled on the first day with nib pens and inkwells and spilled a whole bottle of red ink over his new books. But no one teased the young man for his tears at this misfortune. At the first mark order he came bottom of the class. From here there was only one way and that was up, and up he went in spectacular form. St John’s made a huge mark on him and he on it, matriculating with 5 distinctions (should have been 6 but he misread a question), serving as head boy and earning colours for rugby and half colours for cricket. One of his sister Linda’s strongest memories of the time was watching in awe when as Officer of Cadets, he commanded the whole school at the annual retreat ceremony. His brother Clive’s first year at St John’s was dad’s last. And Clive recalls how as a young and very insignificant prep school boy, his elder brother would breakfast with him every day and walk him down to class.

Next stop – Rhodes University College as it then was – for an experience that shaped his development as profoundly as St John’s had. He fell in love with Rhodes instantly. He packed a lot into two years - playing first team rugby, graduating with distinction and worshipping in this chapel as altar server to the nuns. Armed with a Rhodes Scholarship, dad went up to Lincoln College Oxford at the tender age of 19 to continue his studies in maths. He played rugby for the university seconds (the Greyhounds) and also performed at inter-college level where he knocked out the front tooth of a young Piet Koornhof, future apartheid cabinet minister nogal.

His academic detour into philosophy at Cambridge was a forced one. He wanted to continue with maths, but with typical English pedantry they would not recognise his first class Oxford degree! He rounded off his formal studies at Harvard, graduating in the first class of computer science PhDs. Harvard had attracted the best brains in the field including Howard Aitken the first man to develop a working computer and doctoral students were really stretched. Dad loved to quote an examiner - “Henderson doesn’t know much, but what he does know, he knows well.” From a Nobel Laureate in physics that was actually a compliment!

He returned home to a job at Anglo American, another formative experience which included a year as Harry Oppenheimer’s executive assistant. After his family, there were two special people who influenced dad and for whom he had the greatest respect – the first was his headmaster Sydney Herbert Clarke better known as Nobby and the second was HFO. The former kindled in him his love of maths and his deep Christian faith. The latter showed him the value of principled, gentlemanly leadership. These remained dad’s abiding qualities.

Dad didn’t stay long at Anglo as the call to academic teaching was too strong. But this stint in the corporate world; combined with his time later at IBM gave him unique insights into the business foundations for any successful organisation, including financial discipline, foresight and prudence. These he later drew into a powerful, practical approach to management decades before business schools began to recognise them in the concept of sustainability. Two major institutions – Rhodes and the Grahamstown Foundation – owe their existence to his practice of this art.

At this time, dad met another person who has to change his life – a young geography lecturer named Thelma Mullins. Theirs was not an obvious match as they were two very different personalities, but they were to become soul mates. They were married in spectacular style in Boston in 1958 and their union lasted more than 50 years. Dad said marrying mom was the best thing he ever did, a sentiment she echoed in turn. Their marriage was a real partnership in which each supported the other in developing their individual talents to the fullest. They were in the best sense of the phrase a power couple. Speaking at his 70th birthday, dad said mom had taught him real lessons in loyalty, integrity, perseverance and the true meaning of loving one’s neighbour and going the extra mile. Further noting the many times that a well aimed kick under the table had saved him from saying something utterly imbecilic!

On the last train ride out of Grahamstown as a student, dad had looked wistfully out the window and wondered when he would be back and in what capacity – did he perhaps carry the baton of future leadership he mused. In 1975, it transpired that he did and down we all came from Wits to a new life in Grahamstown. It soon emerged there was a lot to do at Rhodes and in the community. This became a life long and most rewarding challenge for dad and mom. After more than 30 years, there is hardly a piece of the town’s educational, social, developmental and political life they didn’t help change for the better. Their labours of faith, hope and love have left an indelible legacy on this community.

And if we were to look for the essence of the man we honour today – it lies in this injunction of faith, hope and love that St Paul gave to the Corinthians. Dad loved the hymns written by J M Neale whose verses are often pure poetry and we sing one today. Sitting with him in hospital two weeks ago, I came across lines in a lesser known hymn by Neale that for me put it best:

Long as the days of life endure
Preserve our souls devout and pure
The faith that first must be possest
Root deep within our inmost breast
And joyous hope in second place
Then charity, thy greatest grace

Taking the first – faith – that was dad’s constant compass. His belief in God and the larger purposes of life was evident in the way he lived his life, every day right to the end. And he used every one of his God given talents to the fullest. His leadership was of moral example and ability. Dad progressed to positions of influence and responsibility not because he cultivated a constituency of supporters but because others recognised in his integrity and talent that he was the right man for the job.

His faith gave him the courage to match his convictions. He always did the thing his conscience told him was right. Pragmatism and diplomacy would influence how he did it and he would find the smart way to confront conventional wisdom and introduce change.

The second of St Paul’s abiding values was hope. Many have said that dad was the most positive person they ever knew. He never gave up on a challenge. Throughout his life he was a committed South Africa, always believing that good people could make a difference and were called to do so. He and mom could easily have stayed in the US – their skills were hugely in demand and they found life in America very attractive and stimulating. But they chose to come home in very unsettled times just after Sharpeville when few who believed in equal rights, education and opportunity for all felt these would be realised in their life times. They came back because they had hope.

Dad’s hopeful approach to life came through in other ways. He got deeply absorbed in ideas for solving the complex maths questions that had challenged the genius of every age, or improving his golf swing. He enjoyed the time and energy spent on the joy of thinking even if it had no observable result whatever. He never gave up hoping that perhaps one day he might just do it.

The last of St Paul’s values is charity. Dad was generous to many without ever drawing attention to it. He had a long history of service to worthy causes – only resigning his last public office as chairman of the trust supporting the Library for the Blind a few months ago. As a young child I can remember his delivering food parcels for political prisoners at the Johannesburg Fort and wondering as I watched him disappear behind those forbidding doors, whether he would be allowed to leave again. When he retired as VC he turned to politics, serving on the City Council and subsequent transitional local structures winning respect across the political spectrum for his evident concern for the well being of all Grahamstown citizens. It was also in his retirement years that he went back to work, at first in an entirely voluntary capacity to help secure the Grahamstown Foundation from the threat of financial collapse.

But charity we know is nothing without love. As far as romantic love was concerned, he was a devoted husband for more than 50 years. And as for family love, there never was a more dedicated father. The special things he did for us are beyond counting. For years he read each night to Angie and me, working his way through the full compendium of children’s literature instilling in us both a lifelong love of reading. He never lost his temper with us although I am sure he was driven to it on many occasions.

Dad was a total hero to us growing up. There were many reasons for this but the greatest was that he had brought the first computer to South Africa. We are used now to computers we can carry in our pockets – dad’s baby occupied a space half the size of this chapel. It sat on a suspended floor under which ran dozens of electrical cables as thick as your arm. Inside the twenty or more steel cabinets disc drives whirred and hummed continuously. As a special treat dad would take us there and show off the wonders of computing, most impressive of which to us was a mini-programme that printed out a giant Snoopy. Nothing could beat our pride watching him in his white lab coat tending his machine.

Dad had a great sense of humour and he loved to tell funny stories, the funniest often being against himself! Everyone in the family has fallen victim to his pranks at one time or another. The most memorable was when he told mom who was in the throes of completing her master’s thesis that she needed to include an executive summary in Afrikaans. He even roped her supervisor, the professor of social work, into the deceit – yes he confirmed on the phone it is a new requirement, I must have forgotten to tell you about it, and of course it has to be all your own work. Hiding behind his newspaper and pipe, dad let mom struggle on with dictionary in hand for an entire afternoon before telling her he was only teasing. I can just imagine his smile. Like Queen Victoria, mom was not amused!

Dad always had a great love of adventure and we had many memorable family expeditions. His first great Henderson adventure occurred during the war when petrol rationing prevented the family from driving back from Durban to Johannesburg in time for the new school term. There was only one thing for it – Derry (15) and Rex (13) had to cycle back to school. Relying on the 3 standard gears, they tackled Van Reenen’s Pass in midwinter. They made it as far as Standerton before conceding to wind and snow and taking their bikes on the night mail to Johburg. Dad’s last great Henderson adventure took place barely a month ago. The occasion was the Maritzburg wedding of his niece and god-daughter Natalie. Although struggling health wise, he was determined to go and in a trip almost as epic as Dick King’s ride we made it there for a splendid celebration of family that will live long in all our memories.

Angie and I were extraordinarily blessed in our parents. Mom and dad have been an unimaginable gift to us. Each gave unstintingly to us their love, support and encouragement. Each was a powerful role model for us. As we grew older, dad especially enjoyed his role as paterfamilias welcoming into the family two sons in law, Gavin and Ross and three grandsons, Andrew, James and Paul. He was particularly pleased to see the gender balance finally shift in favour of male family members. He was so proud of all of us and we equally of him.

The last year has been a difficult one in the Henderson family. Dad struggled with failing health and mom’s sudden death was a huge shock for us all. It is at times like this that the true value of family becomes apparent. Linda and Clive have been huge pillars of support for us all whilst dealing with suffering, tragedy and loss within their own families. And then we have had Daphne and Diana to draw on for their special brand of love, comfort and support. There have been many in the Grahamstown community who took an interest in dad’s well being and did special things for him, none more so than Beatrice Nkonkoni and Sheila Kukisi. Their affection and love for the man we all came to call father has been heartfelt. Our thanks to all of you and to the sisters and staff of the new wing at Settlers’ Hospital.

Thanks also to Bishop Michael Coleman for officiating at this service and to the many others who have travelled great distances to be here today to pay tribute to this remarkable man, Derek Henderson.

Dad, we miss you so much but we know you are where you belong, reunited with mom. We pray the Lord will grant you the peace and reward you so richly deserve. God bless.

Eulogy delivered at the funeral of Derek Scott Henderson by Prof Pat Terry, Rhodes University.

Rhodes University Chapel, Grahamstown, 18 August, 2009

Margie, Angela, Gavin, Ross, Andrew, James, Paul, your families, friends and colleagues from many walks of life.

It is an immense privilege to stand before you this afternoon in this beautiful chapel. May I begin by thanking the family for asking me to reflect on some aspects of the life, work, influence and character of Derek Henderson, and by extending to the family on behalf of all present a message not merely of condolence, but one tinged with gratitude for all that he has meant to all of us.

In that immortal line from Tennyson, Ulysses, in a mood of reflection, proclaims

I am a part of all that I have met;

I expect that many scholars have interpreted that to mean that each of us carries within us something gleaned from each of the people we have met, and while that is certainly true, I believe an almost contrary interpretation - namely that each of us makes a contribution to everyone that we meet - is more apposite on an occasion like this, where we can all reflect on the part of each of us that was shaped in some way by the life of the extraordinary person that was Derek Scott Henderson.

Two events of singular importance happened on the 28th October, 1929. Economists refer to that date as Black Monday, perhaps the most significant day of the other famous Wall Street stock market collapse. More happily, and, needless to say, quite independently, the day also marked Derek's birthday, in Durban. His early education took place at home, after which he proceeded to St John's College in Johannesburg where he matriculated in 1945 in the first class, and then remained for a further year as Head Boy, while also completing the first year of a BSc degree through UNISA. In 1947 he arrived at Rhodes, where he became student 47H0982 and a member of College House. Here he completed the requirements for a BSc degree with distinctions in Mathematics and Physics, in December of 1948.

In 1949 he became the Eastern Province Rhodes Scholar, and proceeded to Oxford, where in 1951 he took an Honours degree in Mathematics in the First Class at Lincoln College. This was converted to an MA, as is the practice at Oxford, in 1955. With that flair for being unbiased for which he was later to become so well known, he then proceeded to the other place. Here in 1953 he took an Honours degree in the Logic Section of the Moral Sciences Tripos at St John's College, and was awarded the even greater honour of being able to write MA(Cantab) after his name in 1957.

The young Henderson returned to South Africa, and to a career in the world of business. He spent three years with Anglo-American Corporation, the last as Mr Harry Oppenheimer's personal secretary, and by quiet observation learned many of the managerial skills that were to come to the fore a quarter of a century later.

Few graduates of today are keen to exchange the lucrative fields of business for the cut and thrust of academic life, but he left Anglo-American for a teaching post in Mathematics at Wits in 1957, where his interest was fired in what was then a subject barely a decade old, namely Computer Science. After three years at Wits the lure was overwhelming, and took him across the Atlantic to Harvard. When he obtained his PhD in Applied Mathematics in 1960 he became the holder of one of only twelve doctorates in the field of computer science, awarded for a thesis entitled "Logical Design of Arithmetic Units". Geeks in the congregation will be quick to point out that a deep understanding of the CPU could only have stood him in good stead for a future career when he had to understand the CUP. His was exactly the expertise that IBM was anxious to employ, and thus began an exciting period as a member of the architectural team designing the prototype of the IBM 360 family of mainframe computers. Fortunately, William Henry Gates was at that stage only about six years old; jobs at Microsoft were unheard of, and so in September 1962 he opted to return to the University of the Witwatersrand, and to found the first academic computing centre in this country. Within two years he was to be appointed its Director, and in 1967 he became the first Professor of Computer Science in South Africa.

By 1969 he had become Head of the Applied Mathematics Department, and in 1974 he rose further to become Dean of the Faculty of Science. The growth of his department had been extremely rapid, rising to some 44 academic staff and over 3000 students. Whether it is correct to assume that this growth may have conveyed some warning signs to one who for much of his life espoused the maxim that small is beautiful, is not certain. What is more easily established is that at that time a post in our Admin more attractive than most became available, and to this post Derek Henderson was appointed in 1975, thereby becoming (at 46) the third Vice-Chancellor of Rhodes University (and also, notably, the third mathematician to hold this office). With him came his beloved wife Thelma, who was soon to demonstrate to us all that, rather than a woman being found behind every successful man, we should look to see one beside such men, as the couple enthusiastically tackled the challenges of their new lives in Grahamstown.

In our cliche-ridden society the word "transformation" is surely one of the most easily debased and least easily appreciated. It tends to come too easily to the lips of those fired with a passion to effect a quick fix, or to be satisfied by a knee jerk reaction to populist demands, its raison d'etre tends to be ascribed to a lack of foresight and vision, and most sadly of all, it tends to be applied to situations in which it most definitely does not apply. Students of the two decades of this University's history from 1976 to 1995, rather than of only, say, the last two academic terms, will ultimately find it hard not to acknowledge that these decades saw a great deal of transformation take place, and the seed sown for a great deal more. A Vice-Chancellor, being, not surprisingly, at the centre of a group of highly educated, far thinking and critical people, is probably less immune than anyone else to criticism, and inevitably there were those who, on occasions, wished that our third Vice-Chancellor should have been rather less influenced by the writings of Edmund Burke, who once remarked that "change should take place by insensible degrees", and that he should have adopted as his motto carpe diem rather more enthusiastically than festina lente. While those who measure the generation time of a University as around three or four years, may presently find it hard to concede that those two decades in apartheid riddled South Africa will turn out in fact to have been a short time, thay could do worse than to read their Burke further to learn that "a state without the means of some change is without the means of its conservation". True transformation depends on being able to identify what one can change, and how best one can change it. The canny Derek Henderson had that uncanny gift.

We hear a great deal today of the financial crises that Universities face. When Henderson arrived at Rhodes in 1975 he took the helm of an institution that had fewer students in toto than the Department he had left behind at Wits, an institution which the financial experts of the day had predicted was too small to be financially viable, one which had run in the red for three years, effectively without any form of budgeting policy. After two years under his leadership, such was the economic transformation that the University again ran in the black, and has done so ever since.

When he arrived, it was to an autocracy where practically all the important decisions were taken by the Vice Chancellor, and where few, if any, even of the senior Senate members took much part in University government. When he left he had democratized the university just about as far as can be compatible with an institution which has to be elitist by nature, and had endowed it with a system of government that heavily involved most sections of the university community at all levels, and was destined to involve even more in the years ahead.

When he arrived in 1975 the restraints of the apartheid regime were, perhaps, at their very worst in education. As we now know, the tide was about to turn with the uprisings in Soweto a year later. What is less well known is that Rhodes was quietly to assume a sophisticated role in the front line of the changes that started to sweep the country. Black students, who had in the past been denied places at traditionally white universities, began to register at Rhodes, slowly at first, but with growing momentum. By 1996, when Dr Henderson stepped down, the new intake of black students had risen to about 48% of the total. Managing this transformation, which accelerated with every passing year, in a country where the rising clamour of the disadvantaged and oppressed reached understandably frenetic levels, and in a way that was to see this campus avoid so many of the ugly scenes at other places, took not only skill, it took considerable personal courage. During the height of the apartheid years when separation was entrenched and enforced everywhere, Dr Henderson quietly opened the university residences to members of all races. He did so in defiance of existing legislation. He acted without fuss or publicity, but with a firmness which left no doubt that on this issue he would not yield without a fight. In the event, there was no fight. Government officials, flustered by the compelling logic of the Henderson arguments returned to Pretoria uttering threats which came to nothing. Rhodes, under Dr Henderson, became the first South African university to take this seminal step towards becoming truly open. It is with some pride that Dr Henderson could point to the integration, rather than the disintegration, of the residence system which has given this University the edge over so many others.

All these changes reflect major transformations in the ways in which our academic body lived, thought, argued, and prepared itself for its fundamental privilege and priority, that of educating the leaders of the new South Africa, in an environment which now, happily, dispels any myth that Rhodes has remained a White University.

It was a standing joke among the senators towards the end of his tenure that Derek Henderson felt he could not retire until the then rather ugly brown building housing Biological Sciences had also been transformed, to one where parchment white adorned the outer walls, and where the otherwise ubiquitous red tiles at last graced the rooftops of both Biology and Chemistry. As it happened, transforming the physical campus had been high on the list of priorities of one who believed that people will achieve best if they are placed in surroundings that are well maintained, and that the state of the estate should reflect and transmit the message, quite simply, that at Rhodes we care.

Indeed, care was a deeply engrained hallmark of this man, who inevitably became the recipient of a Rotary citation of merit for services to the City of Grahamstown. It will suffice to give one more example.

After his retirement, and when the micro economy of the Grahamstown Foundation was very severely threatened in September 1999, the Council of that Foundation appointed Dr Henderson to investigate, and once again to use his deep understanding of economics, this time to the salvation of the Foundation itself.

One of his close colleagues has written of this latter-day career that "The fall out in job loss during this time concerned him deeply and there were many nights when he got no rest while his mind wrestled with possibilities and solutions to contain the loss of jobs, and to keep the doors of the Monument open. He drove hard bargains with the organizations to which some of the work was outsourced, to ensure that retrenched staff would be absorbed into the workforce of those institutions, and so that staff would continue to work."

I began this address with a line from Tennyson; I shall end with a few lines more. Those who know the poem will recall the inner turmoil that Ulysses expresses in his twilight years:

I am a part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethro'
Gleams that untravell'd world whose margin fades
For ever and for ever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use!
As tho' to breathe were life!

Would Derek Henderson have felt the same? Scarcely so! Far from allowing the margins of his experience to fade and the quality of his life to rust unburnished, Derek Henderson applied his talents to the last, and to the full, in his quest for improvement, not only in his own life, but in the lives of all around him. Has not a part of his courtesy, his care and compassion, his integrity, his unshakeable optimism, his patience, his far-sightedness, and above all his liberalism, become a part of all those of us that he met?

Thank you Derek. Rest in peace.

TRIBUTE TO THE LATE DR DEREK SCOTT HENDERSON, FORMER VICE-CHANCELLOR OF RHODES UNIVERSITY AND AN OLD JOHANNIAN BY VUYO D. KAHLA FORMER VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE RHODES SRC AND CHAIRMAN OF ST JOHN’S COLLEGE ON THE OCCASION OF THE FUNERAL SERVICE FOR DR HENDERSON ON 18 AUGUST 2009

His Grace, the Bishop;
The Henderson family;
Dr Saleem Badat, Vice-Chancellor of Rhodes University;
Distinguished ladies and gentleman:

St Paul, the Apostle, writing to the Church of Ephesus encourages the Church to be “always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.” (Ephesians 5:20)

I thank God for having favored me with a privilege and honour I could never have imagined, even in my wildest of dreams (and I’ve certainly had many), to be invited by the Henderson family to pay tribute to so great a leader and South African as Dr Henderson has been.

Thank you, Professor Pat Terry for so eloquently fixing in our hearts and minds a marvelous picture of Dr Derek Scott Henderson.

I join Professor Matthew Lester in answering the question “When did you study at Rhodes?” with “Under Dr Henderson”.

When I first entered these hallowed walls of Rhodes University in 1990, Dr Henderson was already a legend. He was the Mr Chips of our generation, a man whose legacy was shrouded in legend and myth. Behind us lay the worst of the Makana riots, the June 16 uprisings, the state of emergency, lengthy detentions without trial and the notorious so called De Klerk Bills. Ahead lay an uncertain future, where the possibility of the release of Nelson Mandela was but a hopeful glimmer on the horizon.

I have to admit that, having been charmed by Professor Michael Whisson at a 1989 visit to my school, Holy Cross High School in Mthatha, into considering all the other universities I had applied to as, frankly, no longer options at all; and having heard of the fact that Dr Henderson was one of the stalwarts who kept the flames of liberty, non-racialism and academic freedom during the dark days of apartheid, I was a bit disappointed by Dr Henderson’s welcoming address.

I was expecting a firebrand!

His measured and modest words instilled in me, however, a deep respect for great leadership. He taught me an abiding rule: you do not have to raise your voice to inspire leadership and confidence. He taught me the value of integrity, modesty, discipline and hard work. For this, I am eternally grateful.

Dr Henderson’s leadership provided the environment that enabled some of my fellow comrades and I, in the then South African National Students Congress (SANSCO), to boldly declare in 1991 that black students could no longer be said to be at Rhodes under protest. Therefore, we rightly submitted, the campaign that had been waged by blacks against participation in the formal governance structures of English liberal campuses since the late Stephen Bantu Biko had led blacks out of the National Union of South African Students (NUSAS) could no longer be legitimately pursued.

As a result, SANSCO and NUSAS agreed to jointly put up candidates for the first SRC that would replace what was then known as the Black Students Movement (an alternative student representative structure). I was made the guinea pig of this test and elected to the Presidency of the Rhodes SRC, as its first black Vice-President, with Daryl Lee of NUSAS being the President. Immediately after those successful multi-racial elections, Rhodes hosted the merger congress of SANSCO and NUSAS which gave birth to the South African Students Congress (SASCO) also in 1991 – a fitting tribute to a Vice-Chancellor who sought that Rhodes be both liberal and non-racial in its posture and outlook.

Once I had become SRC Vice-President and member of the Rhodes University Council, an enduring partnership developed between the two of us. It endured not because we could always agree – in fact, given the differing views and objectives we sometimes had, that would have been a pipe dream. Only principle, reason, sense and sensibility would move Dr Henderson – not noise.

This was a time when fundamental transformation was being pursued by SASCO, Nehawu and other progressive academic formations. For Dr Henderson, such transformation had to be driven by principle and the enduring pursuit for excellence. We would engage most robustly on, for example, alternative admissions policies and academic support programmes for students who, because of their disadvantaged educational backgrounds, struggled to succeed in universities.

To meet his approval for the introduction of some alternative admissions criteria and which would certainly not be forthcoming as long as he felt that such criteria had the potential of lowering academic standards, I remember making the point, which we had debated within SASCO, that such alternative admissions system was merely an instrument of broadening access to ever improving standards. He looked at me and Mrs Judy Hilton-Green, then Assistant Registrar: Academic (who pretty much mothered me and other student activists, even when we sometimes made outrageous demands) and said, “Well, let’s give it a try.” Judy and I couldn’t believe it as we left the Vice-Chancellor’s Office.

It was a try that proved, sometimes, to be both empowering and open to interesting applications, and I’m sure it got perfected with time. Prof Ian Macdonald, then Dean of Arts, exposed some of its interesting attributes when Judy sought the admission of a black young man from St Andrews College through a system designed for students who had had a disadvantaged schooling background. Prof Macdonald, with some dry sense of humor, said: “OK, Judy, let’s admit your disadvantaged St Andrean”. When I saw that young man (now a successful business executive) at this year’s Africa summit of the World Economic Forum, I thought that, through Dr Henderson’s try, we may have indeed broadened access to ever improving standards.

One time, after I had been called to the Vice-Chancellor’s Office to be congratulated by Dr Henderson for having been selected as the Rhodes University’s recipient of the Abe Bailey Award for 1994, he asked “Do you think you’ve been selected on an affirmative action ticket or on merit?” I promptly responded, “I competed on merit, and expect to have been selected on merit”. He continued, “indeed you are correct.” Mr Jimmy Manyi would certainly have subjected me to some serious lashings for that response.

Time will not allow that I relate anecdotes from all our interactions – for there were many, including over great meals at the Vice-Chancellor’s Lodge, lovingly prepared by that great and deservingly well decorated community worker, the late Dr Thelma Henderson. They always found joy in hosting the SRC.

Dr Derek Henderson always applied reason without ever negating the faith. His life and leadership reflected that he certainly agreed with the following words of Pope Benedict XVI:

“The faith of the apostles, as we see it in Romans 1 and 2 for instance, thinks more highly of reason. This faith is convinced that reason is capable of embracing truth and that, therefore, faith does not have to erect its edifice apart from the tradition of reason but finds its language in communication with the reason of the nations through a process of reception and dialectic. This means that both the process of assimilation and that of negation and criticism must be pursued on the basis of faith’s fundamental options and must be firmly rooted in the latter. Reason’s ability to embrace truth also implies that truth’s content is constant and coincident with the constancy of faith.”

As Professor Lester may be aware, in 2007, this World Class Christian School in Africa, St John’s College, that its former headmaster, Mr Sydney “Nobby” Clarke had hoped Dr Henderson would one day lead, bestowed on him its highest honor, the Eagle Award, for his meritorious service.

Towards the end of that year, after I had been elected Chairman of the Council of St John’s College, Dr Derek Henderson penned this note to me:

“Dear Vuyo, I was delighted to read a letter signed jointly by Michael Spicer and Roger Cameron with the news that you had been unanimously appointed Chairman of the St John’s Council. Congratulations! I cannot imagine a more suitable person to lead the Council. The links between Rhodes and St John’s are amazing. Michael, Margaret and now you are all ORs. I was very proud to have been a member of both institutions. In attitude they have a good deal in common including the architecture. Their buildings were initially conceived by the illustrious Herbert Baker, designer of the Union Buildings and Groote Schuur. And now your son and my grandson are in the same class, LIII, the very level at which I started, my mother having taught me before that. Vuyo, I know that you will act with discretion and that the school will make excellent progress. May God bless you in your endeavours. Yours ever, Derek Henderson.”

Thank you, Dr Henderson for having ensured that I and countless others, chose well in coming to Rhodes University, Where leaders learn. Thank you for having taught us abiding principles by which we should lead.

Please rest in peace knowing that, with God being on my side, I will always be committed to acting with discretion so that, I too, when my time comes to join you in that kingdom where there is righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit, may say: “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.”

Rest in peace, knowing that, even in this moment of great loss, your family will always find encouragement in its ability to say:

“Mane nobiscum, Domine – Stay with us, Lord!”