A Day in the Life of the University of Pretoria. 12 January 1988

On this "Day in the life of the University of Pretoria" the UP Rectorate discussed the value, financing and future of the UP student year book, Trek.

The UP management team emphasised that Trek's primary goal was not just to provide an overview of student activities throughout a given year, but also to instil a sense of institutional allegiance among the student community.  During the debates on January 12, the Rectorate expressed its support for this book and provided R50 000 for its publishing.

In its founding years the small student body at the Transvaal University College (T.U.C) required simply an annual commemorative magazine. The first student journal, The T.U.C. Students Magazine, debuted in 1912 and continued to be published annually until the 1920s, with a few name changes. The Trek first appeared in June 1931, and would serve as the student yearbook until its last publication in 1922.

Trek, like its predecessor the Vocator, was produced by the Student Represented Council (SRC). Later the University’s Bureau for Public Services (Marketing Bureau) took over this publication.  The name of the publication was chosen as a reminder of its connection to Pretoria's past and as a "brief essence" of its motto, "Ad Destinatum Persequor," which translates to "diligently and with perseverance I pursue towards a specific goal”. According to P.C. Coetzee, the first editor of Trek, the name was “…short and…elegant; it admits only one pronunciation, and that is the right one; and last but not least it is a bilingual word”. The publication featured photographs of sport teams, student organisations and residences. Members of the SRC and student fundraising events also appeared in this yearbook.

The University of Pretoria Archives (UPA) preserves the history of the University of Pretoria. Amongst its many collections the UPA keeps copies of the T.U.C. Students Magazine, Vocator and Trek.  Please contact us at [email protected] to share your Tukkies experiences, or visit the UPA reading room to view our collection.