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06 August 2018 Photo Sonia Small
Karen Lazenby WomenofKovsies
Dr Karen Lazenby strives for a stronger, rule-based, and consistent governance structure.
A transformed University of the Free State (UFS) will be one that promotes social justice in everything it does, a university where its diverse people feel a sense of common purpose and engagement. The UFS is developing this through its Integrated Transformation Plan (ITP) introduced in January 2017. 

“The majority of the current systems and processes in student administration at the university are still manual. This lack of automation leads to inconsistencies and service failures,” says Dr Karen Lazenby. As Registrar for Systems and Administration, Dr Lazenby is responsible for ensuring a smooth and efficient student lifecycle across all three campuses. 

With the ITP, the Governance: Systems and Administration work stream strives to have a stronger, rule-based, and consistent governance structure with a single line of accountability in student administration across all faculties and relevant support departments on the three campuses. By ensuring this ease of use and access there will be an integrated student experience and greater empowerment of students.

“Our focus is on automation and self-services for students (such as the time-table, requests for additional and ad hoc exams and appeals), to ensure transparency and accessibility of rules and policies, decisions relating to admission, progression rules, awarding of qualifications and graduation and faculty and general rules,” Dr Lazenby said.  It will also entail the optimisation of PeopleSoftCampus (the Enterprise Resource Planning system).

“Through this automation, I would also like to get the university’s student administration to such a level that academic staff can focus their energy on teaching and research and student administration staff can focus more on quality assurance,” said Dr Lazenby.

News Archive

Shimlas still the only unbeaten side in 2015 Varsity
2015-03-18

The Shimlas remain the only unbeaten side in this year’s Varsity Cup rugby tournament after their bonus-point 44-24 win against the University of Cape Town Ikeys in Bloemfontein.

The home side managed a very comfortable 34-8 lead in the first half against the defending champions Ikeys. No matter how hard the Ikeys fought back, the Shimlas win was inevitable, and secured the first ever home semifinal at the UFS.

It was in the second minute that Shimlas’ Gerhard Olivier went over the try line. The Shimlas continued to press forward, and kept the game play primarily in the UCT half of the field. By the time the first Strategy Break came along, the Shimlas already had a 21-0 lead over their visitors. The Ikeys did manage one converted try before halftime, still leaving the home side with  a 34-8 lead.

After halftime, there was still no stopping the Shimlas. Even when UCT’s attempt at a comeback saw them scoring their second converted try, the point difference were still 18 points. Shortly after, Olivier scored his third try for the Shimlas. The Ikeys’ response to this was scoring a third try in their comeback effort, putting the scoreboard at 39-24 with Shimlas still in the lead after 65 minutes.

Despite Ikeys’ attempt for their bonus point try near fulltime, Shimlas’ counter-attack saw their replacement player Boela Venter cross the try line for the last  time to secure a 44-24 win for the home side.

The Shimlas will host North-West University’s Pukke side at Shimla Park in the last round of the tournament this coming Monday. For the first time since the Varsity Cup’s inauguration in 2008, the UFS side has already secured a home semifinal for the week after.

Shimlas point scorers:

Tries: Gerhard Olivier (3), Johan van der Hoogt, Danie Maartens (2), Boela Venter
Conversion kicks: Niel Marais (3)

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