25 August 2020
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Story Thabo Kessah
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Photo Supplied
Nicole Morris champions leadership development in her role as Director: Student Affairs.
She describes herself as passionate about leadership development in Africa and constantly seeking new ways of developing and nurturing talent. Her current role as Secretary-General of the
National Association of Student Development (NASDEV) bears testimony to this. Closer to home, she is the Director: Student Affairs, having joined the Qwaqwa Campus just as COVID-19 was about to hit South Africa and the entire globe. During August, she hosted, among other things, a Women’s Month Webinar Series that focused on the theme of Intersectionality Between Politics, Feminism and Social Justice, and featured
Pilani Bubu, South African Music Awards Winner of Best African Adult Contemporary Album in 2020.
She was previously the Manager: Development and Leadership Unit at the University of the Witwatersrand.
Meet Nicole Morris.
Please tell us about yourself: Who you are and what you do.
My name is Nicole Morris – a daughter, friend, traveller, seeker of knowledge, and trailblazer.
Is there a woman who inspires you and who you would like to celebrate this Women’s Month, and why?
My mother – a phenomenal beauty who did not allow any challenge to repress her infectious laughter and her search for beauty and progress through any and all entrepreneurial ventures.
What are some of the challenges you have faced in your life that have made you a better woman?
Fear! The fear of failure, the fear of succeeding! Fear, fear, fear! And then realising that fear is nothing, but False Evidence Appearing Real! Now, having learnt to feel the fear and doing my thing, has anyway liberated me.
What advice would you give to the 15-year-old you?
It is OK to not fit in, it is OK to ask questions, and it is definitely OK to want more. What is important, is to know that you are always living your truth.
What would you say makes you a champion woman [of the UFS]?
An irrepressible ability and desire to find solutions to challenges big and small, and smiling and laughing throughout the journey.
Each of us is born with a box of matches inside us; some people and experiences ignite them, and some dampen them. Each of us has to discover what will set off those explosions in order to live; the combustion that occurs when one of them is ignited is what nourishes the soul. That fire, in short, is its [the soul's] food.