Meet 105th Birthday Torrance Lifetime Creativity Award Recipients
Dr Kobus Neethling: President, South African Creativity Foundation, Founder, the Annual African Creativity Conference, South Africa & Founder, The Kubos Neethling Institute, South Africa
Award Citation
“To Dr Kobus Neethling:
In recognition of your decades of work, dedication, and steadfastness in the field of creativity and giftedness, the KIE Conference is honoured to present you with the 105th Birthday Torrance Lifetime Creativity Award.
You were insipred by Dr Torrance to organise an international Creativity Conference in South Africa, which you did for the first time in 1995—first of its kind in Africa. This conference has now been running for 24 years and is regarded as one of the top three in the world. Just before his death, Dr Torrance encouraged you to consider organising a second international conference only for educators—which you did and this conference has also been an annual conference for the past 13 years (specifically focused on teachers in the most deprived areas). It is also worth mentioning that you packaged the Byonder Model into a large battery of training programs—and you have been training children and adults in Africa, Europe, Asia, the US, Australia and Canada for the past 20 years.
Your expertise was sought after by world leaders including Nelson Mandela who, following his election as President of South Africa, invited you to train his staff on “The importance of Creativity and Innovation in a new South Africa”. Similarly, you were invited by the Office of the Prime Minister of the United Arab Emirates, His Highness Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, to deliver a presentation on “How to introduce and sustain Creativity and Innovation in the Organisation”.
You have written more than 90 books and 9 TV series including a number of international bestsellers (Including ‘Creativity uncovered’; ‘Very smart parents’; ‘Taking you beyond’; ‘Love, sex and the brain’; ‘Creative rugby’ and the new version of ‘Am I clever or am I stupid’ which has sold more than 200,000 copies); you are a Guinness World Record Holder: Co-author of “Making the Impossible possible”: the book of more than 100 pages written in the fastest time ever (four and a half minutes); you developed the largest battery of Whole Brain Instruments in the world (used in more than 40 countries) including the acclaimed 8-Dimension Brain Model. Every week in Pretoria, you train South Africans from all walks of life—business leaders and executives, civil society workers, teachers, civil servants, etc—on how to be creative.”
Dr Bonnie Cramond: Professor, Educational Psychology and Instructional Technology & Director, Torrance Center for Creativity & Talent Development at the University of Georgia, USA
“To Dr Bonnie Cramond:
In recognition of your decades of work, dedication, and steadfastness in the field of creativity and giftedness, the KIE Conference is honoured to present you with the 105th Birthday Torrance Lifetime Creativity Award.
You are an American icon in the field of Creativity and one of Dr Torrance’s Star doctoral students. Your leadership in Creativity internationally is reflected in conference presentations and visiting scholar designation in countries such as Germany, Finland, Korea, Beijing, China, and India, as well as keynote presentations within and outside the United States.
As Director of the Torrance Center for Creativity and Talent Development between 2003 and 2008 at the University of Georgia, you turned around the budget which had finished in the red for several years, balanced it, and ended the last two years with a budget surplus; you reinstituted the Torrance Lecture and brought in top scholars like Dean Keith Simonton, Mark Runco, Joe Renzulli, and June Maker; you reinstituted the Challenge Programs for gifted elementary school students; and initiated the biennial International Creativity Conference at the UGA Costa Rica Campus (two international conferences were held at the site between 2008 and 2010) is known for many other direct support of the UGA Torrance Center and continues to champion Dr Torrance’s accomplishments.”
Dr Marilyn Fryer: Chief Executive, Creativity Centre Educational Trust & Managing Director, the Creativity Centre UK Limited
“To Dr Marilyn Fryer:
In recognition of your decades of work, dedication, local community empowerment, and steadfastness in the field of creativity, the KIE Conference is honoured to present you with the 105th Birthday Torrance Lifetime Creativity Award.
You established a cross-university staff group, the Centre for Innovation & Creativity, at a time when creativity was by no means on the UK government’s educational agenda. It therefore came as a total surprise when various UK government bodies asked for your help in formulating guidelines for UK teachers on creativity across the curriculum. The outcome was the publication, ‘Creativity: Find it; Promote it!’ which the Qualifications & Curriculum Authority for England issued to every school in England. Your expertise was often sought especially on all the drafts of ‘All Our Futures: Creative & Cultural Education!’ with regards to creativity for the National Advisory Committee for Creative & Cultural Education led by Sir Ken Robinson, as well as producing guidelines for the then Department for Education & Employment on improving staff creative working.
After 15 years’ working in the Higher Education Sector, you decided—along with Caroline, your eldest daughter—to set up an independent creativity centre, that includes a charity, the Creativity Centre Educational Trust. Dr Torrance was the first external advisor to this Trust—and you were honoured to have his support. The Trust works with the local community to enable people facing life challenges to develop the creative skills to tackle them. You also run an international not-for-profit e-journal, Creativity & Human Development, whose aim is to bring together the two fields of study which tend to run largely on parallel lines. The e-journal provides a vehicle for connecting academics, professionals and others working in this field.”
Nominations Statistics: 65 nominations received from five continents—Asia, North America, South America, Europe and Africa; 28 nominations rejected—invalid or out of time; 37 valid nominations progressed; 8 nominees short-listed; 3 nominees selected.