Where Paths Meet Again

On 4 August 2026, I travelled to the Potchefstroom Campus of the North-West University for a conversation that, on paper, was simply the discussion of a possible PhD project. In practice, it was something more.

Waiting for me was Professor Michael Temane — psychologist, colleague, and a friend of many years. Our careers began in the same broad field and then, as careers do, took their own directions. Michael moved into the demanding world of university administration, serving in Deputy Registrar roles at both Unisa and the NWU. I remained in research. For a long stretch of years, our paths ran in parallel rather than together.

What brought us back to the same table was neither nostalgia nor administration. It was a student.

Sello Boshomane, from the Mahikeng Campus, is standing at the beginning of the doctoral road — a road that is as difficult as it is rewarding. A PhD is rarely a matter of intellect alone. It asks for endurance, for resilience, and for the quiet reassurance that comes from knowing others have walked the same way and are willing to walk part of it with you. Much of the challenge is not the work itself, but the solitude in which the work is often done.

Our discussion ranged across the shape of the project, its methodology, and the practical realities of seeing such an undertaking through. But beneath the details ran a simpler purpose: to make sure that Sello would not have to face this journey alone.

There is something fitting about two colleagues whose paths diverged finding that they lead back to the same point — a shared commitment to the development of others. What Michael gathered in the machinery of the university, and what I gathered in research, both have their place in supporting a young scholar. Between us, perhaps, we can offer something more complete than either could alone.

It is a genuine privilege to join forces once more with an academic as respected as Professor Michael Temane. I am confident that our collaboration will serve Sello well, and I look forward to seeing where this road leads him.

To support a student at the start of their journey is, in the end, to repay a debt none of us can remember incurring — the support that others once gave us. It is a debt best settled by passing it on.