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30 October 2019 | Story Ruan Bruwer | Photo Sonia Small
Springboks
Prof Francis Petersen, UFS Rector and Vice-Chancellor, paid a special visit to the Springboks in 2018 before they faced England in Bloemfontein. From the left are Jacques Nienaber (Springbok assistant coach), Oupa Mohoje (Springbok), Prof Petersen, Rassie Erasmus (Springbok head coach), and Swys de Bruin (Springbok consultant coach at the time). De Bruin, Erasmus, Nienaber, and Mohoje are all Kovsie alumni.

Like the rest of the country, we are behind our Springboks all the way. This is what Prof Francis Petersen, Rector and Vice-Chancellor of the University of the Free State (UFS), told alumnus Rassie Erasmus in a letter this week.

Prof Petersen wrote the letter to Erasmus, the head coach of the Springboks, to wish him everything of the best in the team’s preparation and for the game on Saturday (2 November 2019) at which they face England in the Rugby World Cup final in Japan.

"On behalf of the staff and students of the University of the Free State, I would like to wish you and the Springbok team all the best with your preparations this week and for the final. I know that Saturday’s match will be played with vigour and determination,” Prof Petersen wrote.

Prof Petersen said the UFS community was extremely proud of the Springboks’ achievements during the 2019 Rugby World Cup – especially with Erasmus at the helm of the team. The Boks defeated Japan in the quarter-final and Wales in the semi-final to reach their first final since 2007.

“As a former Shimla player and Kovsie Alumnus of the Year 1998, we are truly proud of what you have achieved during your career in South African rugby, and especially during the World Cup tournament. We are also proud of our other alumni – Jacques Nienaber as defence coach, and referee Jaco Peyper.”

Peyper refereed one of the quarter-finals and will be an assistant referee in the bronze medal play-off between New Zealand and Wales on 1 November 2019.

Under Erasmus the Springboks won the Rugby Championship this year, the first time since 2010. Erasmus and Nienaber have a long relationship. They met in the army in 1991. Later Nienaber served as physiotherapist with the Shimlas and Erasmus captained the team. They worked together at the Cheetahs, Cats, Stormers, Munster and now the Springboks.

News Archive

Another L’Atelier feather in the university’s cap
2013-07-24

 

Pauline Gutter, winner of this year’s Absa L’Atelier competition
Photo: Supplied
23 July 2013

"Dagbreek: Die Dagbreker" - interview with Pauline Gutter (YouTube)

A former Kovsie won the Absa L’Atelier competition – South Africa’s most prestigious art competition – for the second year in a row.

Pauline Gutter, who completed her BA Fine Arts degree at the UFS in 2003, is the second artist from the Free State to win the competition, which is in its 28th year of existence. In 2012, Elrie Joubert, another former Kovsie student from the Department of Fine Arts, won the competition as well.

As overall winner, Gutter receives a cash prize of R125 000 and six months’ residency in the studio apartment Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris, France.

Her winning entry, Die huweliksaansoek, is an interactive work consisting of a 1.8 m high association-rich obelisk, an engraved plaque, a small TV monitor and a farm-line handset. A video of a bull standing in a crush while semen is being drawn from it, is displayed. The viewer is invited to listen in voyeuristically. The soundtrack for the text is composed of statements and comments made by participants in the programme “Boer soek `n Vrou”. The question highlighted by the work, is, “does a farmer choose his future wife in the same way he breeds his stud animals?”

Pauline says her association with the farm, principled parents and strong family ties serve as inspiration for her work. To express her artistic voice in a contemporary environment is to be a close observer of society, she says. “It’s to ask questions which confront the viewer in a provocative way.”

Her advice to new artists is “hard work, sustainability and commitment. Keep looking until you find the place where you fit in.”

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