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08 October 2018 | Story UFS | Photo Stephen Collett
Researching inequalities and higher education
At the International Colloquium on Researching well-being, agency and structural inequalities, were from the left: Prof Melanie Walker, Dr Emily Henderson (Warwick University, UK), and Prof Thierry Luescher (Human Sciences Research Council).
Researchers from the University of the Free State (UFS), University of Minnesota, Lancaster University, University College London, and University of the Western Cape came together at the Bloemfontein Campus for a dynamic and exciting International Colloquium on Researching well-being, agency and structural inequalities: comparative perspectives. 

Prof Melanie Walker’s South African Research Chairs Initiative (SARChI) in Higher Education and Human Development group has invited experienced and early-career scholars to deliberate on matters ranging from marginalisation, decolonisation, inclusion, enhancing capabilities, negative capability, power, and agency in education. Across the papers, education was understood as having the potential to redress inequality, but at the same time it also reproduces such inequalities.
 
Freedoms in higher education

Following the colloquium which took place on 19 September 2018, the SARChI Chair celebrated the launch of Dr Talita Calitz’s book. Dr Calitz is currently a Lecturer in the Department of Education Management and Policy Studies at the University of Pretoria; she completed her doctoral research and a postdoctoral research fellowship under the UFS SARChI Chair. Her book, titled Enhancing the Freedom to Flourish in Higher Education: Participation, equality and capabilities, explores the insight that student narratives can offer to debates about the complex reasons why some students flourish at university while others are socially and academically marginalised.

News Archive

Spotlight on Excellence in Teaching and Learning
2012-11-08

 
Dr Lynette van der Merwe and Mr Fred Mudanvanhu
Photo: Stephen Collett
08 November 2012

Dr Lynette van der Merwe from the Department of Basic Medical Sciences was announced as the winner of the Vice-Chancellor’s award for Teaching and Learning 2012. This award celebrates the excellent work done by academics in their classrooms. Mr Fred Mudanvanhu from the Computer Science and Informatics Department was named winner of the Excellence in Teaching and Learning award on the Qwaqwa Campus. They received their awards during the first Excellence in Teaching and Learning Week held on the Bloemfontein Campus from 29 October to 1 November 2012.

Hosted by the Centre for Teaching and Learning, the week was a showcase of scholarly teaching in various disciplines and innovation in teaching and learning practice. Some of the top academics at the university exhibited and presented their scholarly contributions in the form of presentations, short videos and electronic posters. This celebration of excellent work done by academics started on 24 October 2012, with the Excellence in Teaching and Learning Day on the Qwaqwa Campus.

Dr Francois Strydom, Director for the Centre for Teaching and Learning, said presentations made during Excellence in Teaching and Learning Week, especially those by the candidates for the Vice-Chancellor’s award for Teaching and Learning, demonstrated cutting edge, reflective scholarship.

He said Dr Van der Merwe’s innovative practises in teaching and learning stem from her Ph.D. research on Generation-Y learners and what their specific preferences are within the context of the Faculty of Health Sciences. “She illustrated how important it is for lecturers to reflect on the characteristics of the students that they are teaching to find the optimal balance between face-to-face interaction and the use of technology to engage the current generation.”

Mr Mudanvanhu was singled out for his research that contrasted the impact of different types of combinations of peer facilitated learning with the technology to improve students’ success.

Speaking at the teaching and learning awards function,Prof.Driekie Hay, Vice Rector:Academics, said the celebration of excellence indicates the pursuit towards developing the next generation of teachers, doctors, architects, scientists and researchers, to name a few. “The graduate that we educate today is the next president, the next Nobel prize winner or your grandchildren’s teacher.”
 

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