Tyrone Brian Pretorius

Professor Tyrone Brian Pretorius is an alumnus of the University of the Western Cape (UWC) and was appointed as the seventh Rector and Vice-Chancellor of the institution in 2015.

His career in higher education spans 33 years, of which 26 years were spent in various senior leadership positions, the majority of them held at UWC. His understanding of UWC’s history, achievements and challenges; his extensive knowledge of university governance and decision-making structures such as Senate, Council, and the Institutional Forum; and his experience serving in leadership positions in other higher education institutions locally and abroad, have contributed to UWC’s advancement as a research-led university during his tenure.

Prof Pretorius is a qualified Psychologist, who began his career as a Senior Academic Assistant at UWC after graduating from the institution with a BA and BA (Honours) in the early 1980s. In 1986, he completed an MA in Psychology at the institution and was appointed to a junior lecturer position within the Department of Psychology. He advanced to a lecturer position a year later. Prof Pretorius served as both a Senior Lecturer and Chairperson of the Department of Psychology in 1990, the same year in which he also attained a D.Phil degree from UWC. For the next 15 years, Prof Pretorius held various senior academic and management positions at UWC – from Associate Professor, Professor, Head of Department, Senior Professor and Dean of the Faculty of Community and Health Sciences, where he served as Dean for four terms.

In 2001, he was appointed as Deputy Vice-Chancellor: Academic at UWC, a position he held until 2005. He is widely recognised for his leadership qualities and his intimate knowledge of the higher education sector in South Africa and abroad, two of the many factors that led to him being appointed as President and Pro Vice-Chancellor of Monash South Africa, the local campus of the Australian-based Monash University. After eight years at Monash South Africa, Prof Pretorius was appointed as Vice-Principal (Academic) at the University of Pretoria where he was responsible for Teaching and Learning, planning and resource allocation.

Other than the degrees he completed at UWC, Prof Pretorius also obtained a second PhD from the University of the Free State in 1997, completed a Strategic Leadership Programme at Oxford University, England in 2009, and participated in the Yale Southern Africa Fellowship Programme of Yale University in the United States in 1989.

He has published extensively in respected national and international journals in the fields of career psychology, coping, stress, statistics and research methodology; has served as an Associate Editor and Co-editor for the South African Journal of Psychology; and authored and co-authored a number of books, monographs and book chapters. In 2001 he was honoured by the Psychology Society of South Africa for his lifetime contribution to the discipline of psychology. He currently serves as Chair of the Board of University Sports Company, and is an Emeritus Professor at Monash University in Australia.