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MT Steyn statue: Public participation process concluded

05 October 2018

The public participation process regarding the review of the position of the MT Steyn statue in front of the Main Building on the Bloemfontein Campus is concluded and the reflective column in front of the statue has been removed. The reflective column was placed in front of the statue to elevate engagement and solicit comments from the university community regarding the position of the statue.

The public participation process started on 9 July and was concluded on 9 September 2018. During this process, the university community had several opportunities to submit oral and written submissions regarding the position of the statue. The oral and written submissions received during the public participation process were analysed by an independent analyst and a report was provided to the special task team. The broad themes that emerged from the public participation process included opposition to the current location; opposition to the removal; removal to alternative positions off campus; and the addition of other statues next to the statue.

The public participation process was by no means a vote on the matter; the aim was to obtain as many opinions and comments about the position of the statue as possible, as it forms part of a broader endeavour to review the position of the statue.

The process going forward is as follows:

(i) The report on the public participation process will be incorporated into the draft Heritage Impact Assessment (HIA), and the heritage consultant will submit the final report to the special task team;
(ii) The special task team will engage with the final HIA and make recommendations to the Rector and Vice-Chancellor;
(iii) The Rector and Vice-Chancellor will discuss the HIA assessment and the recommendations of the special task team with the university’s executive management and will subsequently make recommendations to the UFS Council for consideration during its meeting in November 2018.

Released by:
Lacea Loader (Director: Communication and Marketing)
Telephone: +27 51 401 2584 | +27 83 645 2454
Email: news@ufs.ac.za | loaderl@ufs.ac.za
Fax: +27 51 444 6393

News Archive

Death may come in adorable little packages

2015-03-23

The main host of the Lassa virus is the Natal Mulimammate mouse.

Photo: Supplied

Postdoctoral researcher, Abdon Atangana, of the Institute for Groundwater Studies at the university recently published an article online about the Lassa Haemorrhagic fever in the Natural Computing Applications Forum. In addition to the terminal transmissible sickness recognised as Ebola haemorrhagic fever, there is another strain called Lassa haemorrhagic fever.

The disease is classified under the arenaviridae virus family. The first outbreaks of the disease were observed in Nigeria, Liberia, Sierra Leone, and the Central African Republic. However, it was first described in 1969 in the town of Lassa, in Borno State, Nigeria.

The main host of the Lassa virus is the Natal Mulimammate mouse, an animal indigenous to most of Sub-Saharan Africa. The contamination in humans characteristically takes place through exposure to animal excrement through the respiratory or gastrointestinal tracts.

Mouthfuls of air containing tiny particle of infective material are understood to be the most noteworthy way of exposure. It is also possible to acquire the infection through broken skin or mucous membranes that are directly exposed to the infective material.

“The aim of my research was to propose a novel mathematical equation used to describe the spread of the illness amongst pregnant women in West Africa. To achieve this, I used my newly-proposed derivative with fractional order called beta-derivative. Since none of the commonly used integral transform could be used to derive the solution of the proposed model, I proposed a new integral transform called Atangana-Transform, and used it, together with some iterative technique, to derive the solution of the model.

“My numerical simulations show that the disease is as deadly amongst pregnant women as Ebola,” Abdon said.

Abdon’s research was submitted to one of Springer’s top-tier journals with an impact factor 1.78. The paper was accepted and published February 2015.