UNIVERSITY OF DURBAN-WESTVILLE

presentation of what they were doing. Normally that amounted to a report once every
two or three months. There was tremendous resistance to this. Students felt that faculty
would use this to belittle them rather than to give constructive advice. The other
frustrating aspect was that it was near impossible to get people involved in regular
research meetings or in journal clubs. People were too focused on their specific
disciplines while they kept complaining that they didn't know molecular biology."
I asked Romilla to reflect on how the fact that she is a black person in South
Africa shaped her trajectory in the academic field. She says that her opportunity came
out of "purely personal circumstances that resulted in my ending up in London." From
that opportunity came a big break in that she gained an honours, with an upper second in
biochemistry from the UK, and was considered sufficiently well qualified for entry into
UCT. "I am sure that had I been a UOW graduate my fate would have been the same as
many of my other colleagues who had to leave the country to get their higher degrees. In
some ways I can claim the benefit in having worked hard and having trained under a
highly respected science system in the country. That does give you credibility. When
you meet people they say, 'You must have trained with Oave Woods, you must have
been well trained'. For me it was getting the first degree out of the country that created
the break". She feels that things might have turned out differently in her work
environment had she been at a historically black university at the time that the
development programmes were being implemented. "Then I would have been able to
use those development programmes in developing as a scientist. Because my pride had
taken a little bit of a beating in having had a publication drought, I feel that only those
individuals who understand the discipline and the difficulties would appreciate having a
functional laboratory. If I had to take up a position at Natal tomorrow, with the reagent
bank and the laboratory infrastructure, it would be very different because I would be
able to go through a very brief lag phase and go straight into the research programme.
Part of my reason for going back to Natal was that it is my home town and I had been
away from it for so long. It was an opportunity to be close to the family again."
When I asked Romilla to reflect on how the fact that she is a woman, shaped her
life in academia, she said "In student life and training, I have been fortunate that I have
worked with people who have been very supportive of me as a person, irrespective of
gender. In my post-doctoral training in the US, although the professor himself had fixed
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