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RAG has a new
name and format:
ACT—
Active, Civic, Teaching.
The University of the Free State (UFS) is ready to kick off the new year with a bang. Get ready to celebrate the start of university with a cause. RAG, as you know it, has a new name and format: ACT—Active, Civic, Teaching.
You get further if you pull in the same direction, rather than various good-intentioned movements on different routes. In a collective effort, four exciting programmes will take flight, which are listed below:
- Schools project for first-year students: mentored by senior students, groups of first-year students will be assigned to, and participate in local school projects. Students will learn to solve problems and work together in small groups as they collaborate on a specific community project involving primary or secondary schools in the Mangaung region.
- Community gardens: This project will help individual student communities to begin and maintain their own vegetable gardens in order to address food insecurity within their own environment.
- Eco-vehicle project for senior students: The aim of the eco-vehicle project is to create an interdisciplinary experience. Undergraduate senior students from a Student Life College (SLC) can work together to build an eco-vehicle from waste material. The track day, along with creative pit stops, will take place on 16 February 2018, preceding the Community celebration of 17 February 2018.
- Community celebration: To foster good relationships between the UFS and the community, we aim to host an annual celebration that will be open to the broader Mangaung community. The celebrations will kick off on the morning of 17 February 2018 with a business relay and a showcase of the eco-vehicles. The festive day will conclude with an evening music concert.
Keep checking the UFS website for updates about more ACT activities during the month of February.
UFS academics to submit proposal on innovative research for smallholder agriculture
2009-08-04
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Here are, from the left: Dr Bennie Grové, Department of Agricultural Economics; Prof. Schalk Louw, Department of Zoology and Entomology; Prof. Bland; Prof. Swart; and Prof. André Pelser, Department of Sociology.
Photo: Arthur Johnson |
Prof. Wijnand Swart, Director of the Strategic Research Cluster (Technologies for sustainable crop industries in semi-arid regions) at the University of the Free State (UFS) recently hosted Prof. William (Bill) Bland, Chairperson of the Department of Soil Science, University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA. Prof. Bland’s visit to the UFS was linked to an initiative by Prof. Swart to forge closer links with this university by signing a Memorandum of Understanding in the near future.
Opportunities for collaborative research were discussed with various academics at the UFS, including Prof. Teuns Verschoor, Vice-Rector: Academic Operations, and Prof. Aldo Stroebel, Director: Internationalisation. A definite outcome of these talks is that six researchers from the Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences, in collaboration with Prof. Bland and scientists from the Universities of Makerere and Umutara in Uganda and Rwanda respectively, will submit a joint proposal for a research programme, supported by the National Science Foundation of the USA and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
The objective of this programme, referred to as the BREAD programme (Basic Research to Enable Agricultural Development), is to support innovative scientific research designed to address constraints to smallholder agriculture in the developing world. Prof. Bland also delivered a lecture in the Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences entitled, Holon Agroecology: A Conceptual Framework for a New Agricultural Expertise. The lecture was followed by a multi-disciplinary panel discussion.