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
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

Two academics will be sorely missed
2013-04-02

  

Prof Andrew Marston and Prof Bannie Britz
Photo: Supplied
02 April 2013

The staff and students of the University of the Free State (UFS) are deeply saddened by the recent passing in Bloemfontein of two of the university’s most esteemed and renowned academics, Prof Bannie Britz and Prof Andrew Marston.

Prof Britz was the Head of the Department of Architecture from 1992 to 2000. He was renowned in his field, winning numerous prizes for Architecture, including the Gold Medal for Architecture from the South African Academy of Arts and Sciences.

“As professional architect and urban designer, Prof Britz was a much awarded architect who received numerous award of merit from the South African Institute of Architects for buildings erected in South Africa over the years,” said Martie Bitzer, Head of the Department of Architecture.

Apart from his acclaim elsewhere, Prof Britz also played a major role in the day-to-day activities of university’s staff and students. He was responsible for the design of the many walkways on campus and the refurbishment of the Main Building on the Bloemfontein Campus. For the many contributions in his field, Prof Britz was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by the UFS in 2007.

Prof Andrew Marston, a specialist in natural product chemistry and methods associated with the isolation and analysis of medically important chemicals from plants, was appointed from Geneva, Switzerland in 2009 under the UFS Strategic Cluster for Advanced Biomolecular Research.

He obtained a B-rating from the National Research Foundation (NRF) in 2011, and was consequently appointed as a senior professor in die UFS Senior Professor Programme. “He has made valuable contributions to the UFS in terms of teaching and postgraduate supervision, as well as research. In his short stay at the UFS, he already co-authored more than ten papers in international chemistry literature,” said Prof André Roodt, Head of the Department of Chemistry.

His research group was part of a multilateral agreement in the European Union (EU) with a number of African and three European universities. He obtained new research funding from the Seventh Framework Programme of the EU for the Building Sustainable Research Capacity on Plants for Better Public Health in Africa project, from the Norwegian Research Council for bioprospecting and the isolation and structure determination of compounds from plants and algae, and from the South African Rooibos Tea Council.

The memorial service for Prof Britz took place on Friday 5 April 2013 in the Berg-en-Dal Dutch Reformed Church in Bloemfontein. The service for Prof Marston took place in the Trinity Church, Charles Street, Bloemfontein.

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