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27 August 2018 Photo Barend Nagel
WomenOfKovsies Prof LenkaBula foresees transformation at UFS
Vice-Rector: Institutional Change, Student Affairs, and Community Engagement, Prof Puleng LenkaBula, takes the lead in transforming Student Experiences at the UFS.

“It’s important to think about transformation in ways that are responsive to the challenges which students have raised,” said Prof Puleng LenkaBula. She thinks of transformation as constitutive of deliberative processes, actions, reflections, writings, and literary expressions aimed as a response to the ecological, economic, political, and social context and questions which undergird the learning, research, and engagement of UFS students, staff, and stakeholders.

Prof LenkaBula is Vice-Rector: Institutional Change, Student Affairs, and Community Engagement at the University of the Free State (UFS). 

Committed to knowledge production, novelty, and the advancement of socio-economic development in South Africa, Prof LenkaBula assumes position as work-stream leader for Student Experience in the Integrated Transformation Plan (ITP). The plan aims to identify areas of transformation that the UFS marks to revolutionise and implement in its pursuit of delivering quality graduates who will be able to contest in a global realm of competitors.

Importance of revolutionising Student Experience at the UFS

“My job is to ensure that students flourish academically and are cultivated holistically as human beings who bring embodied knowledge and experiences which will enable them to succeed in life,” detailed Prof LenkaBula. 

She also contributes towards change in the Engaged Scholarship as well as the Names, Symbols and Spaces work streams of the ITP. Prof LenkaBula has been deemed powerful in her ability to traverse disciplinary parameters, research, stakeholder cultivation, and development.

“It is important to navigate symbols and spaces as a co-aspect of Student Experience to enrich the diversity of know-hows at the UFS and map a university that will represent a value-system that prioritises inclusivity and diversity,” urged Prof LenkaBula with reference to the significance of her role in the implementation of the ITP. 
 
ITP deemed an integral mechanism of growth for Kovsies


Ensuring that UFS graduates are locally adept, knowledgeable, active, and globally competitive in imperative areas of interest, highlights the general importance of the ITP for Prof LenkaBula.

The Vice-Rector underlined that the UFS has had historical challenges within its existence which have demonstrated a need for change that promotes dignity for all and respect for the diversity of its people, in an effort to secure social cohesion.

“Open dialogue and participation are mechanisms that the university needs to make use of to engage the past in order to create constructive directions for the future,” said Prof LenkaBula.

She concluded by stating that the UFS is a key global resource, as we live in a state of economic globalisation. “Knowledge is an essential imperative in knowledge-economies that breed skilled labour, and the ability to think critically in order to formulate ideas that will change the world”, said Prof LenkaBula.

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Prestige scholar, Oliver Mutanga, to continue research at University of Pavia through CICOPS scholarship
2014-12-19

 

Oliver Mutanga has been awarded a 2015 CICOPS scholarship – one of only ten researchers world-wide to be afforded this opportunity. The scholarship enables Mutanga to visit the University of Pavia in Italy from January to March next year to expand his research.

As a second-year PhD student taking part in the Vice-Chancellor’s Prestige Scholars Programme, Mutanga is well on his way to achieve his goal of becoming an internationally-recognised scholar. He is currently conducting his research at our Centre for Research on Higher Education and Development under the supervision of Prof Melanie Walker and Dr Lis Lange. In his PhD, Mutanga examines the processes through which disabled students make their educational choices and negotiate different socio-cultural and institutional structures in higher education.

During his stay in Italy, Mutanga will work with Prof Enrica Chiappero-Martinetti on the intersectionality of disability, disadvantage and other social variables. “I will also present lectures and seminars on my PhD work at Pavia University and meet with other young capabilities approach scholars,” Mutanga says.

There is a growing acknowledgement nationally and internationally that there is limited data and understanding of the framing on disability issues. As such, data on the experiences of disabled students in higher education is important and timely in preparation of the Post 2015 Development Agenda.

Mutanga’s preliminary analysis challenges the popular discourse that is so common in South African higher education debates that they receive unprepared students into their institutions. The data seems to indicate the opposite, though: that it might be the institutions that are underprepared to receive diverse students. The study advocates for a capabilities-based conception of student equity that focuses on the widening of opportunities for all students within higher education to pursue what they have reason to value.

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