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20 March 2018 Photo Charl Devenish
Town and Gown programme to expand university reach in communities
Prof Petersen signs an MOU with Princess Motshabi Moroka, patron of the Princess Gabo Foundation, at the launch of the Town and Gown programme.
The University of the Free State (UFS), through the office of Community Engagement, launched the Town and Gown programme on 13 March 2018 at the Bloemfontein Campus. The programme seeks to demonstrate the university’s commitment to building sustainable partnerships in communities and its surrounding towns. It aims to be integrally involved in addressing societal challenges, as well as to avail its intellectual and academic resources to partner with civic and religious organisations, government entities and business communities.

Engaged scholarship central to institutional strategy
In his welcoming remarks, Prof Nicky Morgan Acting Vice Rector: Institutional Change and Student Affairs, said: “The university is not complete without its community and in the same way the community should benefit from the university. This has been encompassed in the newly launched Integrated Transformation Plan (ITP) which has community engagement as one of its components.”  The event was attended by representatives of the Mangaung Metropolitan Municipality, NGOs, religious and traditional leaders, student structures and UFS staff members.

Prof Francis Petersen: Rector and Vice Chancellor, said the university ought to articulate community engagement differently from what other organisations would do, by showcasing engaged scholarship and using teaching and research to make a difference. He emphasised the importance of being close enough to communities to be able to ascertain their needs in such a way that the component of community is brought into the classroom and in the university’s research.

Expansion of community outreach under way
The long-standing ties between the university and communities in the Free State span many years, during which time various collaborative projects have been established with, among others, Non Profit Organisations (NPOs), such as Bloemshelter, faith-based organisations, and traditional leadership structures.

To date, the UFS has supported programmes in education, health, law and rural development through service-learning programmes, involving students and academics in various fields. The target of the Town and Gown programme is to reach out further to include new partnerships in the Motheo Metro Municipality, Maluti-a-Phofung District Municipality, and Kopanong Local Municipality.

Long-standing partnerships strengthened
At the event, several memoranda of understanding (MOU) were signed to confirm five-year collaborative agreements between the university and partner organisations, one of which is the Princess Gabo Foundation based in Thaba Nchu. Bishop Billyboy Ramahlele, Director: Community Engagement said that the MOUs would strengthen partnership with the communities in research, community service learning, and volunteer programmes.

The Town and Gown initiative is a step taken to re-affirm the university’s commitment to partnering with stakeholders in strengthening the capacity of surrounding towns, metros and the Free State region as a whole.

News Archive

Prof Combrink gives 32nd DF Malherbe Memorial Lecture
2014-06-04

Since 2006, Prof HJB Combrink is the project leader of ‘Die Bybel: ’n Direkte Vertaling’. Prof Combrink addressed an audience on the subject of the project at the 32nd DF Malherbe memorial lecture. During the memorial lecture, he quoted DF Malherbe in order to create the context between the recent Direct Translation and the 1933/53 translation which involved Malherbe.

“Some of the younger generation forget that they are standing on the shoulders of workers who served in the muddy ditches of vilification to procure the foundations of a cultural language, and speak belittling and with shrugged shoulders about the first attempts, or show a lack of good comprehension, while judging the verses and tales from the Patriotic period according to aesthetic norms.”

Prof Combrink said that the Direct Translation transpired in a different context than the 1933/53 and the 1983 translations. The direct translation was approached differently and is therefore more inclusive concerning the relevant processes and phases.

“The making of a direct translation was and undoubtedly remains a great challenge,” Prof Combrink said. “It is not always easy to find the correct Afrikaans expression for a Greek or Hebrew idiom or loaded term.”

“It is an ongoing exercise trying to sit in two chairs at the same time. (However), the Bible Society could frankly say that this direct translation is an honest and well-informed attempt to portray all of the communication clues from the Greek and Hebrew source texts in good Afrikaans.”

Prof Combrink was a minister of the Dutch Reformed Church in Wonderboom, Pretoria (1968–1970), lecturer at RAU, UP and SU (New Testament, 1970–2001), and Dean of the Faculty of Theology at the Stellenbosch University for two terms (1992-1994 and 1998–2000). 
 

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