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Prof LenkaBula promotes partnership with German University

23 September 2019 | Story Xolisa Mnukwa | Photo Barend Nagel

The University of the Free State (UFS) Vice-Rector: Institutional Change, Student Affairs, and Community Engagement, Prof Puleng LenkaBula, recently visited the Fulda University of Applied Sciences in Germany to discuss a possible future collaboration between the two institutions.

This was inspired by their multidisciplinary approach to higher-education courses, which she aims to facilitate at the UFS in order to pioneer critical thinking among students to ultimately bring about effective and innovative societal problem-solving in South Africa.

Fulda University is an exceptional higher-education institution with the ability to develop and transform itself to purposefully improve its infrastructure, the quality of students, and studies offered by the university. Their different degrees are structured to intersect with the requirements of the progressive European economic environment.

According to Prof LenkaBula, Fulda University is an outstanding institution specialising in applied sciences and theoretical studies, which set them apart from other universities in the advanced European higher-education system.

Prof LenkaBula believes that the prospect of developing joint master’s and/or doctoral degrees between the UFS and Fulda University would expose UFS students to high-quality international higher-education systems. This will ensure that our students are provided with essential skills to become globally competitive and relevant in their designated career fields, and to become strong contenders in an environment characterised by globalisation and the 4th Industrial Revolution (4IR).
She referred to the global exchange of knowledge systems between the UFS and Fulda University as an opportunity for the UFS to improve the university’s global rankings through learning and participating in international collaborative approaches in higher education.

“In order for our university to cease being seen as an ivory tower, it must be involved in producing knowledge that is beneficial to socio-economic and political development – not only for South Africa, but also for the rest of the world,” said Prof LenkaBula.

News Archive

Sarah, our own champion

2008-11-05

Sarah Shannon at the Paralympic Games in Beijing

Sarah Shannon, a second-year student in the Postgraduate Certificate in Education, has been involved in disability sport on national level for the past 12 years. Sarah has cerebral palsy.

In 1996 she participated at the South African National Championships for the physically disabled for the first time, entering for several sporting codes and winning five gold medals. In swimming she participates in the S3 class together with other swimmers that have comparable abilities to hers.

In 1997 she decided to focus on swimming competitively. She participated in her first national championships for swimming that year. After that (1998) she represented South Africa on international level at the International Paralympic Committee’s (IPC) Swimming World Championships in New Zealand where she ended 4th in the 50m backstroke and 7th in both the 50m and 100m freestyle in her class.

In 1999 she represented South Africa in Johannesburg at the 7th All Africa Games and won a silver medal for the 50m freestyle and a bronze medal for the 100m freestyle.

In 2000 she was part of the South African team at the Sydney Paralympic Games where she reached the finals and finished 7th in the 50m backstroke and 8th in the 50m freestyle. Northern-KwaZulu-Natal also awarded her the Junior Sportswoman of the Year award in 2001. In 2002 she participated at the South African Senior National swimming championships for KwaZulu-Natal in the multi-disability category.

In 2005 she completed the Midmar Mile. She also represented South Africa at the world championships for athletes with cerebral palsy in Boston in the United States of America. She won two gold medals for respectively the 50m freestyle and the 50m backstroke and two silver medals in the 100m and 200m freestyle. She was also nominated to represent South Africa as athlete’s representative on the world committee of CPISRA (Cerebral Palsy International Sports and Recreation Association). In this year Sarah also received the KwaZulu-Natal Premier’s Sportswoman with a disability award of the year.

In 2006 she qualified for the IPC world championships but could not attend.

In 2007 she represented South Africa once more at the Visa Paralympic World Cup in Manchester in the United Kingdom where she broke the South African record in the 50m backstroke, finishing 7th in the 50m freestyle and 6th in the 50m backstroke.

She was also part of the very successful Team South Africa to the Paralympic Games in Beijing. She reached the finals in both the 50m backstroke and 50m freestyle. She finished 7th in the 50m freestyle and 6th in the 50m backstroke in personal best times for both events. She has been participating in the able bodied South African National Swimming Championships since 2002. She is currently ranked 2nd in the world for short course items and 11th for the long course items. She is truly our best swimmer in the S3 class.

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