Latest News Archive

Please select Category, Year, and then Month to display items
Categories
UFS News Media Release Research
Years
2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024
Months
January February March April May June July August September October November December
Previous Archive
23 July 2018 Photo Johan Roux
Pilot exchange programme between UFS and University of Wisconsin
Dionne van Reenen, JC van der Merwe, and Prof John Grider from the University of Wisconsin-Lacrosse.
The Institute for Reconciliation and Social Justice at the University of the Free State (UFS) partnered with the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse in the United States of America (USA) to pilot the first Global Education student-staff exchange. 

The pilot project hosted seven students from the USA and five students from the UFS in a joint tour. The group delved into the political histories of South Africa, visiting among others Freedom Park, the Voortrekker Museum, the Apartheid Museum, and Mandela House during the first leg of the tour in Johannesburg. Before departing from Johannesburg, they had enriching, thought-provoking round-table sessions with Sello Hatang, Leon Wessels, and some of the staff from the Nelson Mandela Foundation.

En route to Pilanesberg in North-West, the tour visited the Sterkfontein Caves and the Cradle of Humankind at Marupeng. Interactive days at the Mphebatho Cultural Museum and Pilanesberg National Park as well as an excursion to Korannaberg to view some San paintings, provided an opportunity to further survey the place of natural, environmental, and cultural heritage in a globalising, modern world.

JC van der Merwe and Dionne van Reenen were joined by Shirley du Plooy and Matau Setshase, together with La Crosse History Chair, Prof John Grider.

Insightful engagements on diverse issues
In Bloemfontein, the lecturing staff facilitated several full-day classes and dialogues at the UFS, after which students offered enlightening presentations on their insights, and showed some serious and deep engagement with legacies of segregation in many different contexts. 

During the closing evening’s discussions with Prof Francis Petersen, UFS Rector and Vice-Chancellor, staff conveyed that, while they usually expect personally transformative moments during such engagements, there is always hope for real critical developments and deepened understandings of how we see and are seen – students on the tour exceeded this hope by seriously grappling with a large array of social and political challenges and initiating lively, inclusive discussions, debating in their own time and spaces.  
“Education, in all its facets, flourished beyond the classroom for staff, students, hosts, and visitors alike, and both institutions look forward to further collaborations in what promises to be a really productive model for international higher-education exchange programmes,” Van der Merwe said.

News Archive

UFS Odeion School of Music (OSM) launched
2011-09-15

The University of the Free State’s (UFS) Odeion School of Music will be launched at the first Dean’s Concert in the Odeion on the Bloemfontein Campus on Friday, 16 September 2011.

The former Department of Music, in the Faculty of Humanities, has been transformed and will henceforth be known as the Odeion School of Music (OSM). This follows in the path of the corporate transition currently taking place at the university, which aims to reflect the progressive and dynamic striving towards excellence, as endorsed by the UFS Vice-Chancellor and Rector, Prof. Jonathan Jansen, and his management group.
 
Two years ago the faculty formulated a new mission with the aim to become an international faculty of excellence. An important component of it has been to create a pro-active marketing strategy and policy towards internationalisation and curriculum development.
 
The name Odeion School of Music portrays not only an excellent asset in the Free State, but also nationally and internationally. The school’s new name bears the respected Odeion brand and a number of successful and respected ensembles operate under this brand. These include the acclaimed residential Odeion String Quartet, as well as the Music Department’s student ensembles, the Junior Odeion String Quartet, the Odeion Sinfonia, and the Odeion Choir.
 
According to Prof. Nicol Viljoen, the Chairperson of the OSM, the name change was motivated by the following objectives:
  • The idea of a school within the Faculty of Humanities not only reflects an academic profile that does justice to the intention of the Department to reposition itself, but also simulates the current identity of the unit. This encompasses diverse thematic entities not only from an academic perspective, but also from a community and cultural perspective. The unit does this through providing services, which include arts entertainment, the provision of facilities, as well as a strong emphasis on community development.
  • With regard to an international perspective, it provides attractive possibilities not only from the perspective of a marketing and publicity profile, but also with regard to the identity of the unit.  
  • Hypothetically the new name allows more flexibility to complement the profile with reference to newly anticipated developments. These include the application of prestigious international experts as artistic fellows, membership to progressive European, jointly developed degree programmes and curriculum development initiatives, the founding of a chair in Orchestra Conducting, a master’s degree in Arts Management, as well as the incorporation of bio-kinetics in the teaching methodologies of performance practice, to name but a few.
  • From a management perspective it could also consolidate the perspective of scarce skill specialisation.
  • To give momentum to the establishment of the OSM, Mr Marius Coetzee was appointed as Innovation Manager. He is a former Project Manager of the European Degree in International Music Management – a joint degree initiative between three Universities from Norway, the Netherlands and Finland, funded by the EU in Brussels. His aim will be to develop and investigate aspects such as internationalisation, marketing, pro-active recruitment strategies, curriculum development and innovative teaching methodologies.
Mr Coetzee said music conservatories, from both European and American perspectives are managed and maintained as highly successful and substantial brands. From the European perspective some examples include the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki (Finland), the Liszt Academy in Budapest (Hungary), the Grieg Academy in Bergen (Norway) and the former Sweelinck Academy in Amsterdam (Netherlands). Similar to the South African milieu, the majority of music conservatories in the USA and Canada are resident within an academic university.
However, unlike the South African reality, the majority of these institutions have a value-added identity portrayed by a specific name. Such an example is the renowned Peabody Conservatory of the University of Baltimore or the Jacobs School of Music at the Indiana University Bloomington, to name but a few.
 
The Dean’s Concert will highlight performances of students in the school. The concert will probably become a regular event in future Spring Music Festivals.


Media Release
15 September 2011
Issued by: Lacea Loader
Director: Strategic Communication
Tel: 051 401 2584
Cell: 083 645 2454
E-mail: news@ufs.ac.za
 

We use cookies to make interactions with our websites and services easy and meaningful. To better understand how they are used, read more about the UFS cookie policy. By continuing to use this site you are giving us your consent to do this.

Accept