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17 April 2019 | Story Mamosa Makaya
National Lotteries Commission
Front row from the left: Dr MA Madzivhandila (board member), Prof YN Gordhan (board member), Ms Charlotte Mampane (Commissioner), Prof D Coetzee (South Campus Principal), Ms Bish B Ramahlele (Director: Community Engagement) Back row from the left T Mandyu (Provincial Manager), Prof NA Nevhutanda (Chairman of the Board), Mr F Van Der Wat (Deputy Director: KovsieSport)
The University of the Free State (UFS) has over many years embarked on developmental projects to improve and upgrade its sports facilities, sports research, medical research, arts and cultural programmes and community focused programmes. These projects were made possible with the financial support of the National Lotteries Commission (NLC) which has provided funding through grants to the UFS since 2006. The UFS office of Institutional Advancement (IA) hosted the NLC on the Bloemfontein Campus on 5 April 2019, where a presentation on the success of projects was made. The role of the IA office is to ensure that the university complies with reporting requirements set out in the grant agreements and that the university maintains good relations with the NLC over the long term.

Funding fortifies UFS projects
Feedback on the success and impact of various projects was presented, such as the visual arts project. This includes the public sculpture project funded with over R3 million in 2009, which brought about the creation of outdoor sculptures that can be seen on the university grounds produced by local and regional sculptors. Feedback was provided by Ms Angela de Jesus, Curator, UFS Arts Collection and Assistant Director: Johannes Stegmann Gallery.  

In 2010 the NLC funded the upgrading of the UFS swimming pool for more than R2 million. The pool was rebuilt to bring it up to Olympic standards, allowing UFS students to have a facility at which to train for international swimming competitions. Feedback on the project was provided by Mr Frans van der Wat, Deputy Director: KovsieSport. Other funded projects are the Khoisan early learning centre, which teaches young learners on the history and culture of the “first people” of South Africa, and the Arts in Schools Project, which were both funded in 2009 for more than R6 million combined. More funded projects include the upgrading of the Johannes Stegmann Gallery in 2017, research into swimming in the Free State, and equipment for the South African Doping Control Laboratory (SADOCol), which is the only laboratory of its kind in Africa, which were funded between 2010 and 2012, totalling R4.8million.

Community development and engaged scholarship
After the change in the mandate of the Provincial Arts Council of the Free State (PACOFS) after 1996, many local dramatic arts professionals in the province were faced with dwindling work opportunities. The UFS, through the Department of Drama and Theatre Arts, stepped in to create arts programmes that would help develop and retain the skills of local performers and playwrights and an opportunity for them to be trained and directed by UFS and industry-based professional directors. 

Prof Nico Luwes, from the UFS Department of Drama and Theatre Arts, said: “I initiated the formation of the Free State Theatre Acts (FACTS) as a section 21 Company with committee members from UFS staff and local actors, with the aim of creating work for professional actors in the greater Bloemfontein area.” A combination of grants from the NLC and the UFS Department of Drama, between 2006 and 2010 resulted in 19 professional plays and four professional musicals, performed by Free State professional artists including community players from Heidedal, Botshabelo and drama students, using English, Afrikaans and Sesotho. These initiatives brought together students and artists from different linguistic and cultural backgrounds, who worked together to perform at local and national arts festivals. Although the NLC will not be funding arts and culture projects at universities in the 2019-2020 financial year, the university is hopeful to be considered in the future.

The UFS and NLC have had a successful working relationship and the feedback session aimed to strengthen the ties between them. Members of the board of the NLC expressed pride at how the UFS has developed not only its own projects, but the Free State community as well. The team was treated to an art exhibition of the work of Cape Town-based artist Ieshaan Adams at the Johannes Stegmann gallery.

News Archive

University gets support to improve student success
2014-11-26

From the left are: Prof Francois Strydom (Director: Academic - Centre for Teaching and Learning at the UFS), Mr Rip Rapson (Chief Executive Officer, Kresge Foundation), Dr Marcus Ingram (UFS Director for Institutional Advancement) and Mr Bill Moses (Programme Director for the Kresge Foundation's Education Programme).
Photo: Hannes Pieterse

The Kresge Foundation has awarded $400 000 (about R4 million) to the University of the Free State (UFS) to increase student success through improved data analysis.

This four-year grant, as part of Kresge’s Siyaphumelela initiative, was recently announced by Mr Rip Rapson, Kresge’s President and Chief Executive Officer. This announcement was made at a symposium on South African higher education and philanthropy in Cape Town.

“Universities across South Africa are grappling with how to improve persistence and graduation rates for their black students in particular,” Mr Rapson said. “These universities will work together with the South African Institute for Distance Education to develop their data analytics capacity to find and share solutions and interventions based on solid information to improve student success.”

The UFS was only one of four universities receiving funding from Kresge. The other universities include the Nelson Mandela metropolitan University in Port Elizabeth, the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg and the University of Pretoria.

The grants will help the universities build their capacities to use data to better integrate institutional research, information communication technology, academic development, student services and academic departments. Beyond the improvements sought for the UFS, Kresge hopes to see new approaches to data become mainstream for higher education in South Africa.

The Siyaphumelela initiative provides four years of institutional support and hope to create a community of practice that learns lessons that may benefit not only individual institutions and the cohort, but also potentially all of South African higher education.

Dr Lis Lange, Vice-Rector: Academic at the UFS, said improving student successes is a university goal that operates in the interface between the Human and Academic Projects of the university.

“We are delighted to be part of an initiative that is going to help us develop greater capability for data analytics and deeper integration between data and teaching and learning practices; and, at the same time, will bring the Centre for Teaching and Learning, the Directorate for Institutional Research and Academic Planning (DIRAP) and the faculties into a closer cooperation.”

Over the past four years donor income to the UFS increased considerably, both from governmental sources, trusts and foundations. By the end of 2013, governmental funding increased from about R5 million in 2011 to over R35 million. Funding by trusts and foundations increased from R5 million in 2011 to over R15 million in 2013. A general increase of 25% in funding is expected for 2014.

Dr Marcus Ingram, UFS Director for Institutional Advancement, says as the UFS begins to settle into a refined academic identity, the Department for Institutional Advancement intends to support these efforts by helping to facilitate the telling of a more integrated narrative to the university’s friends, prospects and donors.

 

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