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10 January 2019 | Story Rulanzen Martin | Photo Sonia Small
Prof Heidi Hudson
Prof Heidi Hudson wants her faculty to embrace the digital era to find that unique ‘KovsieHumanities’.

Ever since her appointment as Dean of the Faculty of the Humanities in March 2018, Prof Heidi Hudson has been on a mission to build relations – and importantly – to find a unique identity for ‘KovsieHumanities’.

“My immediate aim is to consolidate
where things are going well,
and to rectify imbalances and inequities
that developed over time.”
—Prof Heidi Hudson.

 

Prof Hudson is Professor of International Relations with a B2 rating from the National Research Foundation. She was until recently a member of the Committee on the Status of Women in the International Studies Association (ISA), a Global Fellow of the Oslo Peace Research Institute (PRIO) in Norway and is also an elected member of the Academy of Science of South Africa.

 

Critical self-reflection

 

“My immediate aim is therefore to consolidate where things are going well, and to rectify imbalances and inequities that developed over time,” Prof Hudson said. Such a process will require critical self-reflection from all concerned in order to carve out and claim a specific identity and role for the Humanities at the UFS.

 

Research excellence important

 

Research excellence is a major priority for her and plans to enhance research within the faculty will include measures to understand the faculty’s research landscape, addressing uneven productivity and the lack of diversity of our researchers; creating research-ready undergraduate students; increasing and developing postgraduate students; and effectively marketing our Humanities research. 

 

The diversity of the faculty is considered a strength in terms of interdisciplinary and cross-faculty collaboration. “This aspect is also encouraged by the university’s differentiated research strategy where the Humanities will lead and coordinate an African Studies research hub.”

 

Curriculum development and renewal, together with space to actively engage with discipline-specific questions on the decolonisation of the curriculum, is a key priority related to teaching and learning for Prof Hudson. “The approach to curriculum renewal is collaborative, with the recent formation of two programme committees for the generic degrees,” she said.

News Archive

UFS part of project to translate Bible into Sign Language
2012-02-15

 
Signing welcome to the UFS was, from left: Sias Graig from Gauteng; Agnes Dyabuza from the Western Cape; and John Keitsemore from the Free State.
Photo: Amanda Tongha

Plans to have the Bible translated into South African Sign Language were discussed at our university. This project is the first of its kind in the country and our university is playing an active role in it.

Representatives from various church denominations and deaf-friendly local and international organisations met on the Bloemfontein Campus. Wycliffe Bible Translators, Talking Hands, the International Missions Board and Seed, an organisation from Australia, were some of organisations represented. Representatives from Lesotho and Swaziland also attended the meeting.
 
Participants met for the first time in Johannesburg in October 2011. The recent meeting was to discuss the project moving forward. The translation project is expected to be completed in five years time and the final product will be released on a DVD, featuring Bible stories chronologically.
 
Organiser Lisa Craye says Bloemfontein was not only chosen as venue because it is central, but also because of the work that had already been done by UFS staff member Susan Lombaard. Ms Lombaard, who works at the Unit for Language Facilitation and Empowerment, did her master’s degree on the need for a Bible in South African Sign language in 2003.

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