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21 October 2019 | Story Thabo Kessah | Photo Tshepo Moeketsi
Qwaqwa research research
Mamokete Mokhatla (SRC: International Students Council), Pulane Xaba (Assistant: Afromontane Research Unit), Dr Hagenmeier, Morena Ntsane Mopeli, Prof Pearl Sithole, Chief Mlati, Kanego Mogotsi (Internationalisation: Qwaqwa Campus), and Prof Joseph Francis.

Communities are beginning to wonder if universities exist for themselves or for their communities. This is the view shared by Prof Pearl Sithole, Campus Vice-Principal: Academic and Research, during the opening of the two-day Travelling Seminar that was recently hosted on the Qwaqwa Campus. 

Research in communities

“This event is well-placed, considering what many communities are currently going through. We must ask ourselves what we are doing with and for our communities. We must be careful to not only reap data from them, but to be scientific in a way that accommodates our communities and allows the African and indigenous agenda into the world of science,” she added.

Providing background to the concept of homestays, the Director: Institute for Rural Development at the University of Venda, Prof Joseph Francis, acknowledged the role played by communities in research.

 “This seminar seeks to develop a testable framework for homestays; a concept enabling postgraduate students to be placed with rural families while conducting research in the area. It is also aimed at giving birth to a vibrant, community-based rural and regional development network connecting grassroots communities, business, government, and non-governmental stakeholders,” he said.

“We do not only train students for local deployment and within national borders. It is important to produce an ‘all-weather’ graduate who stands out wherever they are. Graduates must ask themselves, ‘what in me stands out among the rest?’ As a student and researcher, never see yourself as being confined to the space where you are,” he added.

Students as ambassadors

Cornelius Hagenmeier, Director: Office of International Affairs at the University of the Free State, said for internationalisation to work, it has to be inclusive and create student ambassadors. “As this seminar will show, our networks of stakeholder communities go beyond the national confines and borders. We must strive, through this project, to create ambassadors of the university, of communities, of the broader South Africa and Africa,” he said.

Participants in the seminar were academics and postgraduate students from both the Universities of the Free State and Venda. Also present were community and traditional leaders from Qwaqwa and the Vhembe District in Limpopo. 

News Archive

Vice-Dean for Natural and Agricultural Sciences appointed at UFS
2011-03-20

Prof. Regina Cornelia (Corli) Witthuhn

The Council of the University of the Free State (UFS) has approved the appointment of Prof. Regina Cornelia (Corli) Witthuhn as Vice-Dean of the Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences at the University of the Free State (UFS). 

Prof. Witthuhn, who is currently the Vice-Dean of the Faculty of AgriSciences at Stellenbosch University, will join the UFS on 1 August 2011.
 
Her career as an academic started in 1999 when she joined Maties as a lecturer. Prior to this move, she had, amongst others, worked part-time as a science and biology teacher at the Secondary School Eunice in Bloemfontein while completing her Ph.D. in microbiology at the UFS.
 
This former Bloemfonteiner’s return is a real asset, because she has been the recipient of many prominent awards, which includes those given by the American Pathological Society (APS) for Best student oral presentation.
 
Her CV also reflects participation in scientific research projects like those performed at the Vrije Universiteit in the Netherlands and the Iowa State University in America. Besides her numerous presentations delivered on local and international level as at the IUFoST 2010, the World Congress of Food Science and Technology, hosted in Cape Town, she also hold membership of several organisations. This includes the South African Association of Food Science and Technology (SAAFoST), the South African Society for Microbiology (SASM), the South African Society for Dairy Technology (SASDT) and the Society for Applied Microbiology (SfAM).
 
Prof. Witthuhn also acted as study leader for many students doing their magister and doctoral degrees in Food Sciences.
 
 
Media Release
18 March 2011
Issued by: Lacea Loader
Director: Strategic Communication
Tel: 051 401 2584
Cell: 083 645 2454
E-mail: news@ufs.ac.za

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