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31 December 2018 | Story Charlene Stanley
Advising pic
Aligning your study field with your career aspirations can be challenging. Academic advising provides solutions.

Over the past few years, institutions of higher learning have experienced an explosive growth in student numbers. Student volumes are often more than campus administrations can effectively deal with. On the students’ side, coming to grips with and transitioning into university and navigating the academic-content processes and technology can be an overwhelming experience – especially for so-called ‘first-generation’ students. Many students often have fixed career dreams, but not a clear knowledge of what they need to get there. This is where academic advising can be a guiding light.

 How Academic Advising works

 Academic advising fosters the development, engagement, and support of students and provides guidance towards academic, personal, and career success. “Through academic advising we basically make sure that students’ career prospects align with their academic programme,” explains Prof Francois Strydom, Senior Director of the Centre for Teaching and Learning (CTL), which houses the UFS Academic Advisement Unit. It is also not only the academic needs of students that are addressed. He describes advising as a ‘hub of the wheel’ that connects students to different departments and services across campus, depending on their needs.

Evolution of Academic Advising

Prof Strydom explains that some type of advising has always existed on university campuses in the form of career counsellors and faculty managers assisting with student queries. But with many institutions virtually doubling in size over the past few years, many students started ‘falling through the cracks’. “There’s been a great need to professionalise this service and to have a clearly defined structure in place with dedicated advisers to assist students quickly and efficiently,” he says. The UFS academic advising team has been playing a leading role in securing a seven-institution collaborative University Capacity Development Grant (UCDG) in 2017 to professionalise the practice in South Africa. 

“We focus on communicating with and serving Kovsie students in ways that really speaks to them, for instance through the Academic Advising Facebook page, email (advising@ufs.ac.za), the electronic magazine (Kovsie Advice), plus face-to-face interactions in the faculties, the Sasol Library in Bloemfontein, and in the TK Mopeli Building on our Qwaqwa Campus,” says Gugu Tiroyabone, who heads the Academic Advisement Unit within CTL. She emphasises that advising is a shared responsibility. “Advisers can never decide for the students but are there to assist them to make informed decisions themselves.”

Data collected from the 1 456 students who utilised continuous academic advising services at the UFS during 2017, has irrefutably shown that these students have a higher probability of passing most of their modules with over 70% – a clear indication that academic advising really works.

Paving a professional path for advisers

Drawing on eight years of ongoing development in academic advising, the UFS piloted the first nationally contextualised Short Learning Programme for advisers in order to guide the development of this practice.

The pilot of the fully accredited Academic Advising Professional Development (AAPD) Short Learning Programme (SLP), which will be presented twice a year, was presented by the CTL early in October 2018 and represented all seven institutions forming part of the UCDG collaboration (UFS, NMU, Wits, UCT, DUT, MUT, and UP).

With the SLP’s ultimate goal to build and cultivate the practice and its practitioners, this national initiative is likely to be one of the enablers for the development and enhancement of student success in South Africa.

 

News Archive

Nanotechnology breakthrough at UFS
2010-08-19

 Ph.D students, Chantel Swart and Ntsoaki Leeuw


Scientists at the University of the Free State (UFS) made an important breakthrough in the use of nanotechnology in medical and biological research. The UFS team’s research has been accepted for publication by the internationally accredited Canadian Journal of Microbiology.

The UFS study dissected yeast cells exposed to over-used cooking oil by peeling microscopically thin layers off the yeast cells through the use of nanotechnology.

The yeast cells were enlarged thousands of times to study what was going on inside the cells, whilst at the same time establishing the chemical elements the cells are composed of. This was done by making microscopically small surgical incisions into the cell walls.

This groundbreaking research opens up a host of new uses for nanotechnology, as it was the first study ever in which biological cells were surgically manipulated and at the same time elemental analysis performed through nanotechnology. According to Prof. Lodewyk Kock, head of the Division Lipid Biotechnology at the UFS, the study has far reaching implications for biological and medical research.

The research was the result of collaboration between the Department of Microbial, Biochemical and Food Biotechnology, the Department of Physics (under the leadership of Prof. Hendrik Swart) and the Centre for Microscopy (under the leadership of Prof.Pieter van Wyk).

Two Ph.D. students, Chantel Swart and Ntsoaki Leeuw, overseen by professors Kock and Van Wyk, managed to successfully prepare yeast that was exposed to over-used cooking oil (used for deep frying of food) for this first ever method of nanotechnological research.

According to Prof. Kock, a single yeast cell is approximately 5 micrometres long. “A micrometre is one millionth of a metre – in laymen’s terms, even less than the diameter of a single hair – and completely invisible to the human eye.”

Through the use of nanotechnology, the chemical composition of the surface of the yeast cells could be established by making a surgical incision into the surface. The cells could be peeled off in layers of approximately three (3) nanometres at a time to establish the effect of the oil on the yeast cell’s composition. A nanometre is one thousandth of a micrometre.

Each cell was enlarged by between 40 000 and 50 000 times. This was done by using the Department of Physics’ PHI700 Scanning Auger Nanoprobe linked to a Scanning Electron Microscope and Argon-etching. Under the guidance of Prof. Swart, Mss. Swart en Leeuw could dissect the surfaces of yeast cells exposed to over-used cooking oil. 

The study noted wart like outgrowths - some only a few nanometres in diameter – on the cell surfaces. Research concluded that these outgrowths were caused by the oil. The exposure to the oil also drastically hampered the growth of the yeast cells. (See figure 1)  

Researchers worldwide have warned about the over-usage of cooking oil for deep frying of food, as it can be linked to the cause of diseases like cancer. The over-usage of cooking oil in the preparation of food is therefore strictly regulated by laws worldwide.

The UFS-research doesn’t only show that over-used cooking oil is harmful to micro-organisms like yeast, but also suggests how nanotechnology can be used in biological and medical research on, amongst others, cancer cells.

 

Figure 1. Yeast cells exposed to over-used cooking oil. Wart like protuberances/ outgrowths (WP) is clearly visible on the surfaces of the elongated yeast cells. With the use of nanotechnology, it is possible to peel off the warts – some with a diameter of only a few nanometres – in layers only a few nanometres thick. At the same time, the 3D-structure of the warts as well as its chemical composition can be established.  

Media Release
Issued by: Mangaliso Radebe
Assistant Director: Media Liaison
Tel: 051 401 2828
Cell: 078 460 3320
E-mail: radebemt@ufs.ac.za  
18 August 2010
 

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