Latest News Archive

Please select Category, Year, and then Month to display items

UFS School of Nursing celebrates 50 years

11 April 2019 | Story Zama Feni | Photo Supplied

School of Nursing 50 year anniversary — From the left: Mrs Cheslyn Petersen; Prof Magda Muller, Head of the School of Nursing; and Prof Francis Petersen, UFS Rector and Vice-Chancellor.

The University of the Free State (UFS) Rector and Vice-Chancellor, Prof Francis Petersen, hailed the institution’s School of Nursing as one of the flagship entities and prime examples of community engagement.

Addressing attendees at the 50th anniversary celebrations of the school on 6 April 2019, Prof Petersen said: “I believe that you have managed to find a balance between being at the scientific forefront in terms of research output and state-of-the-art simulation and other training technologies, and the values of care, service, and selflessness.

History of the School of Nursing

Taking the guests down memory lane regarding the history of the school, Prof Petersen said the university accommodated Nursing students within the Department of Social Work in the then Faculty of Social Sciences from the year 1967. The Department of Nursing was subsequently created in 1969. At that point, there was no Faculty of Health Sciences, and the Department of Nursing remained in the Faculty of Social Sciences.

Growing from strength to strength

He said the School of Nursing has over the past 50 years gone from strength to strength, affecting the landscape of nursing in South Africa through its achievements and its alumni.

“In celebrating 50 years of nursing scholarship and education, it is important to understand that the discipline of nursing is firmly rooted within the community it serves.”
“Without our stakeholders across many services, both public and private, we would not have been here tonight,” said Prof Petersen.

Head of the School of Nursing, Prof Magda Mulder, said the 50th celebrations were an important milestone which commenced with the appointment of Professor Idalia Loots as the first Professor of Nursing in 1969 in the erstwhile Department of Nursing.
“Prof Loots’ views on graduate nurse education were visionary and saw the relatively small intake of students soar from between 16 and 20 to more than 80. Today, there is ample evidence in literature to support nursing education at graduate level, resulting in better nursing care, and fewer errors and lawsuits,” she said.

News Archive

National 3MT competition held at UFS

2017-03-29

The two winners of the Three minute thesis
competition, Andrew Verrijdt (left) and
Kerryn Warren (right).
Photo: Charl Devenish

From Neanderthal hybrid children to eating corn silk as a way of managing kidney diseases, the National Three Minute Thesis competition (3MT) captivated the mind.

“We brought the competition to South Africa and hosted the local, regional, and national competitions for the past few years,” said Dr Emmie Smit, organiser of the event. It is an opportunity to raise the profile of postgraduate research and to develop a cross-disciplinary student community to effectively communicate research to a wide audience. The event was founded by the University of Queensland, Australia. The third national 3MT competition took place at the University of the Free State (UFS) on Friday 24 March 2017.

Three minutes and one slide
During the competition, participants had three minutes to explain their master’s or doctoral research and one static PowerPoint slide could be used. “It is very important that this slide works for you. There must be some way the information on the slide connects to what you present,” said Dr Henriette van den Berg, Director of the Postgraduate School at the UFS.

Winners grateful for opportunity
“It is an honour and a drive. It is very nice to have this sort of thumbs up,” said Kerryn Warren, winner of the Science category. Her research title was, What did a Human-Neanderthal Child Look Like? “I have been looking at the hybrids between different species and subspecies of mice in order to use them as a model to find out what human hybrids looked like.”

The presentation by Andrew Verrijdt, winner of the Humanities category, entitled Hiding in the Deep: Anonymous Websites for Paedophiles on the ‘Darknet’, gave a glimpse into the mysterious and dangerous realm of the dark web. “I am grateful for the opportunity. Primarily because I think it’s an important topic, and society will benefit by getting the word out there as it is a sensitive topic,” he said. The two winners, both from the University of the Cape Town, won R15 000 each. A further R30 000 of prize money went to the four runners-up.

Back

Economic and Management Sciences

Education

Health Sciences

The Humanities

Law

Natural and Agricultural Sciences

Theology and Religion

Open Distance Learning

Business School

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