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27 August 2019 | Story Xolisa Mnukwa | Photo Xolisa Mnukwa
Student Toolkit
The First Edition of the UFS Student Toolkit is now available on Blackboard.

Download the toolkit here

A common question first-time entering first-year students often ask themselves when they come to university, is: ‘How will I deal with the pressure?’

The University of the Free State (UFS) Department of Student Counselling and Development (SCD) – with the vision to promote, enable, and optimise students’ self-direction – has launched the first edition of the Student Toolkit on Friday, 23 August 2019.

The toolkit, which is now available on Blackboard, is intended to assist students in dealing and coping with challenges they face in their personal lives during their period of study at the UFS.

Students will be exposed to a variety of topics, pressing issues, and phenomena that they will encounter on a daily basis in their lives, such as academic and personal challenges, time management, procrastination, goal setting, anxiety, effective studying, stress management, mindful meditation, self-love, loneliness, relationships, sexual orientation, family frustrations, overthinking, death, and suicide. 

Present at the launch was the UFS Vice-Rector: Institutional Change, Student Affairs, and Community Engagement, Prof Puleng LenkaBula; the UFS Dean of Student Affairs, Mr Pura Mgolombane; the UFS Director for Student Counselling and Development, Melissa Barnaschone; Counselling Psychologist and compiler of the UFS Student Toolkit: Lize van den Bergh.

In addition, BCom Marketing honours student and poet, Thuthukani Ndlovu, Chief Executive Officer and founder of Next Chapter, Tshepang Mahlatsi, three students who have benefitted from SDC services, delegates from the department, and other affiliated students were all in attendance. 

For more information about the Student Toolkit, contact the Department of Student Counselling and Development at scd@ufs.ac.za or call +27 51 401 2853.


News Archive

UFS mourns the death of Prof. Jakes Gerwel
2012-11-29

Prof. Jakes Gerwel
29 November 2012

The University of the Free State (UFS) mourns the death of one of South Africa’s most respected academics and leaders, Prof. Jakes Gerwel.

The 66-year-old thought leader died on Wednesday in Cape Town, after spending Tuesday in critical condition following heart surgery.

Prof. Gerwel was a well-known figure in South Africa's political history and in his later years, he chaired and was on the board of major organisations and corporations. In 2004 the UFS awarded an honorary degree in literature to him.

Prof. Jonathan Jansen, UFS’ Vice-Chancellor and Rector, said Prof. Gerwel was one of South Africa's leading scholars in Afrikaans literature and an outstanding university leader during troubled times.

“He inspired a generation of young scholars through his example of linking political activism to academic excellence in ways that enhanced both. I regard him as my senior mentor, and I am forever grateful for the example he set, which I hope to emulate.”
 

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