Values

The UFS subscribes to values that shape and inform our culture and provide a framework for our actions and decisions. Our values are realised through the conduct of the wider university community.

Excellence: We are committed to pursuing excellence in every aspect of university life. Excellence is the foundation of rigour in our scholarship, including the advancement, imparting and application of knowledge. It informs our learning, teaching, research, broader engagement, and management and governance processes.

Impact: The University’s goal is to be a university meaningfully supporting sustainable societal development. We value and encourage creativity and strive to identify, question and challenge the status quo. Our knowledge will continue to contribute to developing the Free State, South Africa and the African continent, as well as advancing global knowledge and understanding.

Accountability: We recognise our obligation to students, staff, stakeholders,
society and the global knowledge community. We will be stewards of good
governance who are accountable, responsible and dutiful in our actions. We will be conscientious in utilising financial and physical resources and having an impact on the broader environment.

Care: We are committed to creating circumstances that are conducive to high-quality teaching, learning and scholarship, while emphasising the well-being and happiness of the university community. We are committed to caring for ourselves, our fellow humans and the natural environment. We seek new citizenship and ways of promoting a sense of belonging at the UFS, premised on respect, inclusivity and empathy.

Social justice: In pursuing social justice, we seek to advance the values of human dignity through ethical and transparent institutional responsiveness. We interpret social justice within the South African historical context to emphasise inclusiveness, the reduction of inequality and the creation of opportunities and pathways out of poverty and dispossession. Our commitment to social justice calls everyone to build on productive foundations and create new structures in pursuit of truths and practices that grant human dignity to everyone.

Sustainability: We commit to ethical and responsible stewardship of all institutional resources, processes and practices to ensure operational, financial, environmental and societal sustainability. We aspire to live harmoniously with our environment, influencing all our choices and decisions.