What is it? At the UFS, the graduate attribute project aims to instil relevant skills, competencies, knowledge, and attitudes essential for graduates’ success in the workplace, regionally, nationally, continentally, and globally. This project ultimately hopes to enhance our students’ employability by intentionally integrating these attributes into curricular and co-curricular spaces.
Why is it important? Embedding relevant attribute outcomes into modules is important because the current context demands that graduates be resilient, adaptable, and able to navigate complex environments and futures to make an impactful contribution to societal and economic development. The University of the Free State has 9 Graduate Attributes, as shown in the image below:
Academic competence is at the centre of the image, indicating that the remaining attributes should be developed as part of degree programmes and/or integrated into courses, rather than as add-ons.
How is it implemented? TThe graduate attributes team regularly conducts workshops with academic- and support staff to map their modules and programmes against the attributes, as well as to work towards the intentional integration of the attributes into curricular and co-curricular spaces. If you are logged into Blackboard as a UFS staff member, you can access multiple faculty-specific examples of how to integrate the graduate attributes into your module outcomes, assessments and learning and teaching activities in the Graduate Attributes Portal by clicking here. For a short tutorial video on how to find and access the Graduate Attributes Portal for staff on Blackboard, click here.
AAdditionally, to support students, we introduce attributes and a development plan through the First-year Seminar module (UFSS). The graduate attributes are also woven into the UFS #MyCareer pathway. Further, the Digital Skills and Competencies graduate attribute was launched in 2023 as a learning pathway for students, with a certificate awarded upon completion of each level. You can learn more about this pathway by clicking here.
What does it look like? The following are examples of how we support staff through webinars and presentations:
- Click on the thumbnail to watch the 2022 webinar: “Delivering a new kind of graduate”.
- The Graduate Attributes project team presented a pre-conference workshop at the 2023 UFS Teaching and Learning Conference, showcasing the development of graduate attributes in each faculty. View the list below and click on the images to watch the pre-conference experience in full:
- Pre-conference workshop: Graduate Attributes at the UFS: Faculty Voices.
- Keynote address: Creating a Collaborative, Knowledge-sharing Environment for Building Talent for All by Cathy Simms, the founder and executive director of SAGEA.
- Panel discussion: Universities’ Role in the Integration of Graduate Attributes and Collaboration with External Stakeholders.