Prominent retired professor Frans van Rensburg dies at 92
AUCKLAND PARK – THe UJ Department of Afrikaans remembers the late retired academic Prof Frans van Rensburg.
The Department of Afrikaans at the University of Johannesburg (UJ) mourns the recent death of Professor Frans van Rensburg on 10 January, just a week before his 93rd birthday.
Van Rensburg taught Afrikaans linguistics at the University of the Free State before being appointed as the first professor in Afrikaans-Nederlands (as the department was known at the time) in the new RAU (Rand Afrikaans University) of 1967, today known as UJ.
Van Rensburg served as a lecturer from 1967 until his retirement in 1987.
His past students and colleagues described him as an inspiring academic and influential in his contribution toward Afrikaans literature. Van Rensburg was also a well-known and highly respected expert in the works of N.P. van Wyk Louw.
UJ Department of Afrikaans’ Prof Jac Conradie said, “the Department of Afrikaans is grateful to Prof van Rensburg for a career of 20 years devoted to the development of the university in general and the Afrikaans literary scholarship in particular, and wishes to extend condolences to his wife Susan and their children.”
Van Wyk served as head of the Department of Afrikaans at RAU for a respectable number of terms and additionally served as Dean at the Faculty of Humanities on various occasions.
A funeral service for Prof van Rensburg was held on 15 January at the NG Church Lindenpark in Linden.
