FoAD staff members graduate during the spring graduation

Ms Tando Mbanga



Three DUT Faculty of Arts and Design (FoAD) staff members graduated on Friday, 7 September 2018 during the final day of the Spring graduation season.

Fashion and Textiles’ Tando Mbanga and Helen Smith and Jewellery Design’s Songezo Baleni all graduated with Master of Technology Degrees in their respective programmes
Mbanga’s research focused on entrepreneurship education with the aim of motivating students to see entrepreneurship as a possible career.

“I did my research on this particular field as South African Higher Education Institutions need to train, groom and motivate students to see entrepreneurship as a possible career in an economy that cannot create enough job opportunities for our graduates,” she said.
She thanked her supervisors for their encouragement and support because her journey to qualifying for her Masters has not been easy.

Smith’s thesis was inspired by her BTech research that looked at fashion and social media.
“I researched one of the branches of celebrity phenomenon: ‘thinspiration’, I found that media plays quite a vital role in what is perceived as popular or ‘fashionable’ and felt this could be quite an interesting topic to further investigate,” explained Smith.

She expressed gratitude to her supervisors for their ‘tremendous’ support. Smith also said she is proud of herself for completing her qualification.
Renowned jeweller, Songezo Baleni who is famous for his best hand-crafted fine woven jewellery said he was excited about completing his Masters.

FoAD Research Co-ordinator Dr Maleshoane Rapeane-Mathonsi extended ‘sincere congratulation’ to the trio for their accomplishment.

The graduation ceremony also saw the Faculty of Arts and Design honour four South African legends Dr Esther Mahlangu, Mr Johnny Clegg, Mr Welcome Bhodloza Nzimande and Mr Sipho Mchunu with honorary doctorates in Visual and Performing Arts.

- NASIPHI GIGABA 

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