Monday, March 22, 2010

My Supervisor


This one's a tribute to my academic supervisor, Dr. Vincent Atterbury (on the right of the photo). Fuller Theological Seminary in the USA taught me many things, but they did not teach me rigour. I was unprepared for studies at the South African Theological Seminary. With this in mind, uppermost in my mind when I think of Vincent (as he is to me) is the fact that he looked at my potential at the beginning, not my actual competence (this is not always the case with supervisors, or seminaries). Also, he taught me the rigour that I so much needed and wanted. His competence as a supervisor is proved by my excellent results. To give an example (I'm not quoting verbatim), I sent him a draft of my thesis, saying: "Here's a completed draft. Now you can see it in full." He turned straight to the bibliography, and spotted an error. He returned it, saying, "It needs to be perfect. Then I'll look at it."

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