Masakhe 02_DIGITAL PAPERTURN - Flipbook - Page 43
LEGENDARY ACADEMICS
EMERITUS
PROFESSOR
PAUL BOWEN
TEXT BWANGA KAPUMBA IMAGE SUPPLIED
EDITORS NOTE: Professor Paul Bowen retired from the Department
a few years ago after an illustrious career that saw him serve as
the Head of Deprtament for close to a decade. He is still actively
making a contribution to the department’s rserach enterprise as a
Senior Research Scholar. He has been recognised by the National
Research Foundation (NRF) as someone “who enjoy(s) considerable
international recognition by their peers for the high quality and
impact of their recent research outputs”.
E
meritus Professor Paul
Bowen may be retired,
but he still speaks of his
days lecturing at UCT with
fondness.
“I enjoyed lecturing. It’s like having
a blank canvas in front of you every
year,” he says. “New students, new
questions, new hopes… Every lecture
has to be, I think, like a show. I was
exhausted at the end of
a lecture because I didn’t read
out notes. Usually, I loved to speak
about it with passion.”
Paul Bowen taught Cost
Engineering to undergraduates
and Research Methodology to
postgraduates at UCT. A prolific
researcher and publisher of papers,
he retired from full-time work in 2018
but still supervises Masters students
today. This is his story.
Born and raised in Natal, Paul
Bowen found interesting ways to
entertain himself whether he was
inside or outside the home. On cold
days, he spent time indoors building
Airfix model aircrafts or exploring
the worlds between the pages of a
book. When the sun wasn’t shy, he
was outdoors playing touch rugby,
football and cricket with the other
boys in the neighbourhood.
“We lived quite close to Durban
Harbour. So, you used to grab your
bait, your lunch, your rod and you’d
just wander off – illegally probably
– into Durban Harbour and cast it
amongst the big ships. I had a great
a great childhood, really great…”
ISSUE 2
41
DECEMBER 2 025
