Latest News Archive

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

iCAN Vol 2 strengthens CTL’s bid to decolonise

28 November 2019 | Story Rulanzen Martin | Photo Dr Peet van Aardt

iCAN read more — The book was launched during the Student Arts and Life Dialogues Festival on the Bloemfontein Campus in October.

In its continued bid to decolonise the academic curriculum at the University of the Free State (UFS) the Centre for Teaching and Learning (CTL) published the second volume of Creative African Narratives (iCAN) short stories written by UFS students.

iCAN Volume 2 comes after extensive creative writing workshops were presented on all three campuses during the year. The project is coordinated by Dr Peet van Aardt from CTL and is funded by the Andrew W Mellon Foundation.

Through the iCAN project, CTL plans to incorporate the students’ written texts as part of the extensive reading component of the first-year academic literacy courses across all faculties. “We are teaching and motivating our students to read, but we cannot keep relying on a curriculum that is foreign to them,” said Dr Van Aardt.

The volume comprises 55 short stories with topics ranging from the Struggle, to campus life, mental illness, family affairs and love, with the students’ lived experiences also a main theme throughout the anthology. The stories are written in Sepedi, isiZulu, Setswana, English, Afrikaans and Sesotho. Some were also performed at the recent Multilingual Mokete, held on the Bloemfontein campus in September.

“We are really proud of this year’s publication, and the project as a whole,” says Dr Van Aardt. “This year we were able to include more student contributions than last year.”

News Archive

SA Academy for Science and Arts honours two from the UFS

2015-04-15

From the left are: Prof Johann du Preez (UFS), Prof Barry Frey (retired Dean of the Faculty of Environmental and Health Sciences, CUT), Prof Nico Smit (NWU), Prof Leslie Brown (Unisa), Ms Alechea Engelbrecht (UFS), and Prof Jo van As (UFS).
Photo: Supplied

The SA Academy for Science and Arts has honoured Professors Jo van As and Johann du Preez from the University of the Free State, together with academics from two other universities, Prof Nico Smit (North-West University) and Prof Leslie Brown (Unisa).

The medal of honour from the SA Academy’s Faculty of Science and Technology has been awarded to the four researchers for their book, Die verhaal van lewe en die omgewing: 'n Afrika-perspektief.

In 2012, this book was published in English as The Story of Life and the Environment: an African Perspective. From the outset, the project was meant to be published also in Afrikaans, specifically to make ecology as discipline available to students and nature lovers in Afrikaans.

The book is in full colour and has over 750 colour photos and nearly 200 illustrations specially designed to explain processes and systems.

The medal is awarded for achievements in, and contributions to, the furthering and development of a particular area in the natural sciences.

The authors, who are established researchers in the natural and life sciences, make a valuable contribution in an accessible yet scientific manner. The book conveys previously difficult-to-understand concepts in an interesting way to the ordinary reader.

The award ceremony will take place on 24 June 2015 in Stellenbosch.

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