The management, staff and students of Africa International University (AIU) wish to announce the promotion to higher glory of Prof. Regina Blass on 1st May, 2015 while undergoing treatment at Nairobi Hospital.
Prof. Regina Blass was born in Wuppertal, Germany, in 1943. She did vocational training in business, and started her career as a business manager’s assistant at Kolb and Company screw factory at Wuppertal in Germany in 1961. She also served as “Au Pair” in order to learn English for the Alford family, in Broadstone, Britain, in 1965.
She then went ahead to work for Wycliffe Bible Translators, Germany. Prof. Blass took training on how to carry out linguistic research, and went to Ghana in 1970 to work with the Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL) as a linguistics researcher and translator in the Sissala language project in northern Ghana.
After completing her MA degree in 1980, she moved to the town of Leo in Upper Volta (later Burkina Faso) in 1981 to continue working on the Sissala language just north of the Ghana border. Regina continued her academic career, completing her PhD in linguistics at University College London (UCL) in 1988 under Prof. Deirdre Wilson.
Her study on Sissala particles became widely known in the field of Relevance Theory. She continued working in the project until 1991, when she settled in Ouagadougou to serve as a linguistics consultant and Director of Academic Affairs for SIL in Burkina Faso.
In 1995, she moved to Niamey to become the Director of Academic Affairs for SIL in Niger. Here she also taught courses in linguistics at the University of Niamey. The New Testament in Sissala was dedicated in December, 1999. Prof. Blass’ main contribution to the Sissala translation was in the area of the linguistic analysis and description of the Sissala language.
The same year, 1999, Prof. Blass was asked to move to Nairobi Evangelical Graduate School of Theology (NEGST) in Kenya to take up a teaching position as a professor in the Translation Studies Department. She served for sixteen years as a faculty member and research professor, and most recently as Head of Department at Africa International University, formerly NEGST.
At the time of her death she was also Acting Dean of the School of Education, Arts, and Social Sciences. Under her guidance, the department changed its name to the Department of Language, Linguistics, and Communication. She was enthusiastically developing new programs in linguistics, translation, and language teaching at the time of her death.
Throughout her academic career she attended many conferences on the pragmatics of language. She presented and published many papers in this field, and, as was her nature, helped others to attend such conferences. Regina’s work in linguistics is acknowledged world-wide.
Regina was active member of Christ is the Answer Ministries (CITAM) in Karen. Regina was passionate and enthusiastic about her academic career, but she was much more than an academic. She will be remembered in all the places where she lived for her generosity and hospitality. She helped educate many children, and was active in helping HIV-positive women. She will be sorely missed by the children she had taken into her home, and by all her friends and colleagues.
Burial will be on Monday 11th May 2015, a memorial service will be held the same day at CITAM Karen at 10.00am.
