Latest News Archive

Please select Category, Year, and then Month to display items
Previous Archive
18 April 2019 | Story Rulanzen Martin

The Institute for Reconciliation and Social Justice IRSJ) has initiated a Social Justice Week at the University of the Free State (UFS), which started on Friday 12 April  until Wednesday 17 April 2019. 

Ten key events took place during the week. It ranged from dialogues, workshops, talk shows, debates, and interactive displays and events on issues of multilingualism and diversity, social innovation, engaged scholarship, the Fourth Industrial Revolution, gender sensitisation, sexual consent, sexual preparedness, universal access, disability, anti-discrimination, and security.

There was also a round-table discussion on 17 April 2019 with various UFS stakeholders on off-campus student security as well as an inter-institutional discussion on the same topic. The UFS Debating Society will take on the topic of the UFS Language Policy, while Olga Barends from the Free State Centre for Human Rights will host a dialogue on sexual consent.

The IRSJ has also designed and implemented SOJO-VATION: Social Innovation/ Social Change, which strives to create a foundational platform where ideas of social justice, innovation, and engaged scholarship at the UFS and in society can be hosted. SOJO-VATION partners with the Office for Student Leadership, Development, and Community Engagement.

The collaborating partners for the Social Justice Week includes various UFS stakeholders such as the Sasol library, the Gender and Sexual Equity Office, UFS Protection Services, the Free State Centre for Human Rights, the Student Representative Council (SRC), the Office for Student Leadership Development, Kovsie Innovation, GALA, the FFree State Centre for Human Rights, SRC Associations, the Office for Student Governance, Kovsie Innovate, Start-Up-Grind, EVC, EBL, Community Engagement, the Institutional Transformation Plan (ITP) Dialogues Office, Residence Dialogues, UFS Debating Society, Debate Afrika!, the Center for Universal Access and Disability Support (CUADS), and the Gateway Office. 

News Archive

Cluster offers workshop about soil health
2009-10-12

The University of the Free State’s (UFS) Strategic Cluster 4 (Technologies for Sustainable Crop Industries in Semi-arid Regions) recently presented a workshop about soil health on the Main Campus in Bloemfontein. According to Prof. Wijnand Swart, Director of the Cluster, this topic currently enjoys high priority within the cluster. The workshop was presented to create awareness amongst all interested parties in agriculture about the important role that soil micro-organisms play in crop industries. Research in the cluster follows a “total system approach” by analysing the biodiversity of specific agronomic systems with the aim to develop so-called bio-indicators for the general health of agro-ecosystems. Dr Jill Clapperton from the University of Leithbridge in Canada and the University of Montana in the USA presented four papers during the workshop. Dr Clapperton is a scientist who has gained a lot of international prominence in the field of soil ecology and environmental health. Qualitative and quantitative responses of bio-diversity in time and space on agricultural practices, such as, amongst others, tilling as opposed to non-tilling, manuring, mulching, irrigation and the application of fertilisers, were some of the topics that were discussed during the workshop. Here are, from the left: Dr Forbes Walker, Institute of Agriculture, University of Tennessee, USA; Dr Neal Eash, Institute of Agriculture, University of Tennessee, USA; Prof. Swart; Mr Richard Fowler, Conservation Agriculture Capacitator, Pietermaritzburg; and Dr Clapperton.
Photo: Lacea Loader

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