Interview of Paul Hills by Creative Worx on the award of his Fulbright Scholarship
Creative Worx (CW): What is a Fulbright Scholarship?
Paul Hills (PH): Well, firstly, it doesn’t mean I’m fully bright, that’s one thing. There are a number of Scholarships administered by the US government, and the one I’ve been awarded is the Hubert Humphries Fellowship award. This is aimed at mid-career professionals, to raise skills and professional standing, so that they can better contribute to their communities. They build custom-made programmes around one’s interests and talents. It involves study and professional activities at US universities, with fieldwork designed to enrich the quality of my contribution back home.
CW: And what would that contribution be? How does one qualify?
PH: I’m a TV professional. Although I now teach TV journalism and media history in the School of Journalism & Media Studies at Rhodes, I’ve spent some 25 years in the TV industry here and abroad. I guess the fact that I was prepared to switch careers to academia indicated to them that I was serious about the development of my industry. I qualified for the Fulbright because I’m keen on developing community television in South Africa, and that was something I suppose they thought was worthwhile. I plan to take this experience and use it to assist the Eastern Cape in its quest to develop community TV licensing.
CW: At Rhodes?
PH: Not only, the licensing works geographically, the idea is to provide whole communities with access to media, not just ‘special interest’ groups like Rhodes. My plan is to use Rhodes’ infrastructure to produce and sustain community TV, and to spread this capacity into marginal communities via a staggered development strategy that moves this initiative into other geographic areas in the Eastern Cape. But yes, one of the first building blocks is to use campus TV here as a productive nucleus, and to spread this nucleus into communities. The principle that people should be in control of their own messages needs to be foregrounded as an operational principle right from the start.
CW: And a Fulbright Scholarship can achieve all that?
PH: It’ll help. I’ve been on the start-up team of a number of TV stations, including eTV, so the notion isn’t that foreign to me. It’s not as difficult as it sounds.
CW: How long will you be away?
PH: A year, and I’ve put into place top professionals who’ll take care of things in my absence. So initiatives such as JMS4 TV, RUTV, cueTV and sciTV, as well as Creative Worx itself will continue uninterrupted. My School, as well as Rhodes Admin have been very supportive. After all, our VC is a Fulbright Scholar, as well as Professors Berger and Steenveld, and Sim Kyazze from the School; Eitan Prince, who teaches Radio is currently in the States doing exactly that. I leave in August this year. My only regret is that I’ll miss the soccer, and my J4s graduation.