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
07 June 2018 Photo Prof CB Bousman, from Texas State University.
Quaternary International volume dedicated to UFS research fellow
Dr James Brink visits the Erfkroon site on the Modder River in the Free State.
The contents of a special issue of Quaternary International (QI), consisting of 13 articles and contributions by 45 authors (25 from abroad), was recently presented to Dr James Simpson Brink. The papers represent the broad range of topics covered by Dr Brink’s research interests.  

The special issue of QI was initiated to coincide with James Simpson Brink’s 60th birthday after he recently celebrated 35 years of ground-breaking research at the National Museum of Bloemfontein.

Dr Brink is affiliated to the Centre for Environmental Management at the University of the Free State (UFS).

Prof Louis Scott, researcher in the Department of Plant Sciences at the UFS, was the executive guest editor, and was part of a team of three guest editors (Dr Liora Horwitz from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, and Dr Daryl Codron from the National Museum in Bloemfontein) who worked on this special issue of the journal, QI. 

In honour of a friend and colleague
“Dr Brink made contributions to osteology, Quaternary palaeontology, and archaeozoology, by investigating the environments and mechanisms that drove the evolution of mammal communities of southern Africa,” said the guest editors. 

“By studying the morphology of the endemic black wildebeest he demonstrated how the species evolved in the central interior of South Africa. He pioneered descriptions and dating of faunal assemblages that make up the so-called ‘Cornelian’ and ‘Florisian’ Land Mammal Ages. In this way he reconstructed the long history of environments in which Stone Age occupants survived in the region. The work included the age determination of the cranium with facial bones of an individual who lived at Floribad around 250 000 years ago.

Work enabled more important studies
“Dr Brink contributed more than purely academic insights in that he built and curated the modern mammal and fossil faunal collections of the Florisbad Quaternary Research Station. These collections made it possible for researchers, who came from all over the world, to visit the Free State and focus on spatial and temporal palaeoenvironmental trends. Apart from contributing to the functional diversity of mammalian species, this enabled the investigation of morphological and behavioural variations across populations and communities,” said the editors.

The topics of the papers in this special issue of QI are interdisciplinary and include different methods in archaeology, vertebrate palaeontology and past (or palaeo-) environmental reconstruction. The ages dealt with range from the relatively recent Iron Age to the Oldowan period, which is over a million years old.

According to Prof Scott, with a degree of overlap in the interdisciplinary fields studied, the papers can be arranged into 1) taphonomy and archaeozoology, relating to the processes resulting in the formation and preservation of fossil material in archaeological sites, 2) Stone Age archaeology, dealing with artefacts, stratigraphy and palaeoanthropology, and 3) palaeoecology, that includes palaeontology, isotope studies and palaeoenvironmental reconstructions.

The journal, published by Elsevier, will be distributed worldwide. 

News Archive

African Student Affairs Conference a huge success
2011-05-24

 
Mr Rudi Buys, UFS Dean of Student Affairs, Mr. Folabi Obembe, Managing Director of Worldview International, Ms Birgit Schreiber, Director of the Centre for Student support services at the University of the Western Cape, Dr. Augustinah Duyilemi, Dean of Student Affairs at the Adekunleh Ajasin University in Nigeria, Dr. Christina Lunceford, assistant Director for the Centre for Research on Educational Access and Leadership at California State University in America, and Prof. Cecil Bodibe, student affairs veteran and consultant.
Photo: Earl Coetzee

The African Student Affairs Conference (ASAC), which took place on our Main Campus last week, was a major success, with two days of lectures and discussions and two pleasant social gatherings, where delegates had the opportunity to get to know each other.

The conference, hosted on African soil for the first time, and co-hosted by the University of the Western Cape (UWC), started on Wednesday 18 May 2011 with an informal welcoming session. Delegates got to meet each other and Mr Rudi Buys, UFS Dean of Student Affairs, explained the meaning of South African words like "kuier" and "lekker'.

The official start of events took place on Thursday 19 May 2011, in the Reitz Hall in our Centenary Complex. The conference was attended by delegates from universities across the continent and aimed to place the focus on issues relating to student affairs in an African context.

Delegates shared and exchanged strategies, ideas and resources, and discussed issues related to the work of student affairs professionals. The conference hoped to promote an exchange of best practice and assist attendees in identifying successful programmes.

Among the topics discussed on the first day, were “Constructing Post-Conflict Democracy on campus: a case study of transformation of student governance and political engagement as post-conflict intervention”, by Mr. Buys, and a discussion on ways in which social and online media can be used to ease the challenges of student interaction, development and support, by Ms Birgit Schreiber, Director of the Centre for Student Support Services at UWC.

A panel discussion, led by Mr Buys and several members of our Interim Student Council (ISC), discussed the specific challenges faced at the UFS.  The importance of buy-in from role-players in decisions taken by University management in order to ensure their success, was discussed, using the UFS and our recent changes as an example.

The successful integration of residences on campus inevitably came under the spotlight and the recently resolved Reitz-saga was named as a catalyst in getting students less apathetic and more involved in attempts at creating racial and social harmony.

Dr Christina Lunceford, Assistant-Director of the Centre for Research on Educational Access and Leadership at California State University, presented a paper entitled A National Approach to Building Capacity in Student Affairs in South African Higher Education.

She commented on the fact that there is little or no philosophical framework or explicit theory that informs practice of student services in South Africa.

According to Dr Lunceford, student development should be a key concern for every department or unit within student services and emphasized the need for a centralized student development unit at each university.
She also touched on the need for institutions to implement support from international student affairs professional associations, professional development for student affairs practitioners, the utilization of technology to support professionals in the field, and working with international partners to explore future opportunities, as ways in which student affairs can be used to drive performance and change at universities.

The conference continued in the Scaena theatre on Friday 20 May 2011, with presentations by Dr Augustinah Duyileme, Dean of Student Affairs at Adekunle Ajasin University in Nigeria, and Prof. Bobby Mandew, Executive Director of Student Affairs at the University of Johannesburg (UJ).

Dr Duyileme presented a paper on the challenges faced by Nigerian universities with regard to student conflict and protests, which often turn violent, and how such violence can be curbed through proper planning and management.

Prof. Mandew presented a very well-received presentation on UJ’s successful off-campus housing initiative, which involves home-owners and business owners in the areas surrounding their campuses.

Their approach demonstrated how proper planning can prevent problems associated with over-population in private homes and conflict with neighbours of the university, usually related to an influx of students into residential neighbourhoods.

This problem is faced by many universities, as more and more students flock to universities on the continent and campus residents cannot accommodate them.

The conference came to a close on Friday, with most delegates agreeing that the exchange of knowledge which took place was extremely valuable.

Ms Deborah Lahlan, of Nigeria, said: “This is an important conference for Africa and it should become a regular event.”
 

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