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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

Before I die …
2013-09-11

 

Cornelia Faasen, Director:  Student Life at the wall.
11 September 2013
Photo: Leonie Bolleurs 

The Bloemfontein Campus offers a new creative manner of expression through the Before I die Wall. Similar walls are found in over 30 countries across the globe, including Argentina, China, Italy, New Zealand and Denmark. Kovsies is the only university in South Africa with this fixture, one of merely three in the country.

The wall provides the opportunity to students to write down the things they would like to do before they die.Elsa Mostert, head of the Student Life and Leadership (SLL) volunteer’s office, says the presence of such a wall on campus contributes to the holistic, personal and professional development of students. “The wall addresses post-tertiary development needs. It serves the university by enabling students to rethink the priorities in their lives and to help them focus on their dreams.”

This wall is located at the student centre, Thakaneng Bridge, outside the bookshop.“Everyone is welcome to write on the wall. It will be wiped clean after every two weeks,” Mostert says.

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