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29 October 2018


Prof Stef Coetzee, former Rector and Vice-Chancellor of the University of the Free State (UFS), passed away in the Mediclinic Cape Gate on Saturday 27 October 2018. 

Prof Coetzee assumed duty as the 11th Rector and Vice-Chancellor of the UFS on 1 April 1997. He will be remembered for his drive to promote transformation at the UFS. During his time as Rector and Vice-Chancellor, he initiated a revitalisation process (turnaround strategy) which was ultimately finalised by his successor, Prof Frederick Fourie.

Among others, he established a Broad Transformation Forum (BTF) and transformation office to draft a new political framework for the UFS. He strived to manage the university as a business enterprise and was focused on developing the academy in an entrepreneurial manner. His legacy includes the establishment of the BTF, the revitalisation process (turnaround strategy), academic revitalisation, growing student numbers, and increased research outputs. He stepped down as Rector at the end of 2002.

“The turnaround strategy initiated by Prof Coetzee during his term as Rector and Vice-Chancellor is still evident today in the management approach of the UFS. On behalf of the executive management and the university community, I wish his family, relatives, and former colleagues all the best during this difficult and sad time. I hope that they will find comfort in his significant contribution to various sectors in the country – especially at the UFS,” said Prof Francis Petersen, Rector and Vice-Chancellor of the UFS.

Prof Stef Coetzee obtained his MA degree in Economics at Stellenbosch University in 1973, and a DPhil in Development Economics at the University of the Free State (UFS) in 1980. He is a former Executive Officer of the Afrikaanse Handelsinstituut and was also associated with Unisa and the North-West University


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News Archive

Vermeulen’s work on display at Johannes Stegmann Art Gallery
2015-10-26

 

Dot Vermeulen, Anthropology (2014),
Oil on plywood, 300 x 200cm.
Photo: Supplied

“I am primarily fascinated in the travelling or movement of images in different spaces and media. By moving images from one medium into another, or posting and reposting them in different urban and virtual spaces, I ask questions about media presence and space.”

According to the late artist Dot Vermeulen, this is what the work for her Master’s degree was about. She was still completing it at the Department of Fine Arts at the University of the Free State (UFS).

Her work, called Posting Presence, is currently on display at the Johannes Stegmann Art Gallery on the Bloemfontein Campus. The exhibition is running from 1-30 October 2015.

Vermeulen was a junior lecturer at the Department of Fine Arts before she passed away in a car accident in April 2015.

According to Angela de Jesus, curator of the UFS Art Galery, the exhibition would have been part of Vermeulen’s final evaluation for her Master’s degree. She was one of South Africa’s most promising young artists, and won the prestigious Sasol New Signatures art competition in 2013.

In the work she had done in Posting Presence, Vermeulen said the spaces represented were derived from areas under bridges in an urban space where the visual messages left, speak of an accumulation of movement.

Exhibition event

An exhibition event was held on Friday 16 October 2015 at the Johannes Stegmann Art Gallery to celebrate Vermeulen’s work.

Janine Allen-Spies
and Prof Suzanne Human, the supervisors of her Master’s degree,spoke about the work to those attending.

Catalogue


De Jesus said a catalogue of Vermeulen’s research for Posting Presence had also been compiled, and would be available at the UFS Sasol Library in order for others to “use her work for further research”.

•    Vermeulen’s work can be seen from 08:30-16:30 daily until 30 October at the Johannes Stegmann Art Gallery on the Bloemfontein Campus.

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