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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

Incidents on the Bloemfontein Campus
2016-08-25

Statement by the Institutional Forum of the University of the Free State (UFS) - Released by Dr Willy Nel (Chairperson) on behalf of the Institutional Forum of the UFS

 

Two incidents happened on campus the past week, which were brought to the attention of the university management:

1. The university management received a complaint on 16 August 2016 that a student had sprayed liquid in the face of a security guard at one of the university gates. The reason appears to be that three students were sent back to their residence to collect their student cards in order to exit the campus – as required – and this might have caused the reaction. In video footage, it is clear that a student on the passenger side was responsible for the spraying incident. Statements have been taken from the three students in the car as well as from the affected security guard. The student claims that the liquid was water from his gym bottle. Regardless, charge sheets were prepared and delivered, and the disciplinary hearing has been scheduled on an urgent basis for 1 September 2016.

2. An incident happened on the Bloemfontein Campus on 23 August 2016, with a test being distributed in a class where the answer to one of the questions was included in the Afrikaans version, while it was excluded in the English version. The matter was investigated and it was decided that the written test will be set aside and a new test, covering the same scope, will be compiled for all students; the new test will be subject to external moderation; and external moderation of tests in the particular department will take place until the end of the year. The lecturer concerned claims that this was a genuine mistake and not intentional, in that guidelines for that one question were removed after a decision to add further examination questions, which made the guidelines obsolete; in the process of revising the papers, the lecturer made a mistake and did not remove the guidelines for both the English and Afrikaans versions. Nonetheless, the university management has decided on a disciplinary process involving the lecturer concerned, given the seriousness of the matter.


Released by: Lacea Loader (Director: Communication and Brand Management)
Tel: +27 51 401 3422/2707 or +27 83 645 2454
Email: news@ufs.ac.za  | loaderl@ufs.ac.za
Fax: +27 51 444 6393


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