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06 February 2020 | Story Michelle Nöthling | Photo Johan Roux
Symposium bridges the gap between students, staff, and management
Students from the UFS, UCLA and VUA shared on their collective experience within higher education at the colloquium.

The Unit for Institutional Change and Social Justice at the University of the Free State (UFS) united with the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), and the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (VUA) on the Bloemfontein Campus in a symposium discussing ‘Fragility and Resilience: Facets, Features and (Trans)Formations in Higher Education’. “It is really the only conference that brings together support staff, academic staff, students, and upper administration management, which includes vice-chancellors, rectors, presidents, and provosts,” said Dr Dionne van Reenen, Senior Researcher in the Unit for Institutional Change and Social Justice, and convener of the event.

Dr Van Reenen further explained that, when it comes to matters such as policy changes, contact between these various groups at a university is crucial. In general, upper management has very little contact with students. Students would rather approach academic staff. In turn, academic staff members are often reluctant to approach support staff, since support staff are already burdened with administrative tasks. But, Dr Van Reenen continued, all these stakeholders actually need to move closer to each other, since the Academic Project goal is the same: delivering excellent-quality graduates and producing new knowledge. With this in mind, the symposium programme specifically included panel presentations and discussions by academic as well as support staff and students. What emanated from these discussions was a rich variety of topics speaking to various aspects of fragility and resilience. The following are only a few excerpts from these engaging dialogues. 

Using counter-stories to narrate fragilities and resilience in higher education institutions in South Africa

Dr Fumane Khanare, Dr Ntombizandile Gcelu, and Pearl Larey – all three academic staff members in the UFS School of Education Studies, and Lihle Ndlovu, Head of Department for Business Studies at the uMfolozi TVET College – use narratives to interrogate fragility and resilience among black women in higher education. They wanted to go beyond surface conversations about how each was doing and decided to use critical race theory to question even their own stories through collaborative learning. They share, listen, question, and reflect, and as a result, create new narratives through counter-stories. “We are trying to explore our narratives,” Dr Khanare said, “not only as the outsiders, but as the insiders as well. From our background, we cannot ignore that we came here full of potential, but full of fragilities as well.” 

The ambiguity of change: The stories that South African student narratives tell 
Continuing the exploration of narratives, Dr Frans Kamsteeg from the Department of Sciences at VUA shared his research among students of the UFS who were part of the Leadership for Change programme. The programme, that came to an end in 2016, took UFS students through a process of leadership courses and training and included a trip to one of the external participating foreign universities. Dr Kamsteeg subsequently received several groups at the VUA and became interested in how these students engage in transformation processes at the UFS. Presenting seven vignettes of students’ narratives, Dr Kamsteeg revealed a tapestry of multivocality and fragility, and a meandering path of self-identity and transformation. “They learned a lot about academic citizenship and becoming responsible citizens,” Dr Kamsteeg added.

Keeping up with changing times: Student leaders, resilience, fragility, and professional development

Dr Marguerite Muller, Pulane Malefane, and Liezl Dick were all residence heads at the UFS. During the #FeesMustFall period, they realised that the role of student leaders had begun to change. They saw how these roles evolved and became interested in how student leaders became stakeholders and decision makers at the UFS. An interesting outcome from the arts-based research was that in the individual drawing exercise – in which students had to represent their lives as a winding river – fragility did not feature at all. Instead, the student leaders chose to depict sources of challenges and support, and how these factors built resilience. However, in the group exercise where students had to stage a puppet show, the stories revealed clear areas of fragility. Essentially, the students were willing to show fragility as long as they were fragile with others. “What we learned was that it is really important for student leaders to understand the complexity of their roles. Student leaders also need to learn and understand that it is okay to fail, that you need to grow and need to change, and that fragility in this sense is not necessarily a weakness,” Dr Muller concluded.

News Archive

UFS’ position on student politics
2011-09-01

The University of the Free State (UFS) welcomes politics on its campus. It especially invites students to participate in all the political activities on campus, ranging from seminars and debates on national and provincial politics, and organization within party political structures. Earlier the year, in the run-up to the Local Government Elections, a programme was run on campus with all political parties participating in public and radio debates with students on political issues.

A university must be a place for all kinds of ideas and organizations---social, cultural, religious, academic and, yes, political. The perception that the UFS has “banned” politics is simply not true, nor is it possible within a constitutional democracy.
 
The University of the Free State once again invites SASCO and any other political groupings that have not yet registered to participate in campus life, to do so as soon as possible. It is important to the UFS that all student bodies enjoy full participation in campus life, and that there exists a vibrant and exciting political life on the campus alongside academic, social, cultural and religious life.
 
The Student Representative Council (SRC) Elections at the UFS has been constituted on independent candidacy and non-party-political basis. This is a decision crafted and recommended by the Broad Student Transformation Forum, whose members are elected by students, and approved for implementation by the highest authority of the university, the Council. The decisions of the Student Forum entails that all students can nominate individuals for a variety of student leadership positions, which includes nomination for elective portfolios in the SRC elections, but also within nine sub-councils that hold ex-officio seats on the SRC.
 
The old system which restricted student leadership to representation on a party-political basis only (DA, ANC, Freedom Front Plus etc) no longer exists.
 
This decision of the Student Forum ensures that the rights of all students to directly elect their representatives are protected, and that the SRC in fact represents the student body as a whole and not particular interest groups alone. This decision enables ALL students to stand for and participate in campus politics in the SRC elections, though not on a party political ticket. In the 2011 SRC Elections, for example, SASCO members were indeed mandated by its local branch to stand as candidates for various elected positions, as did other political parties such as the DA Student Organisation, a development which the university welcomes. 
 
Most importantly, the UFS insists that all students participate in university life with respect for the rights of all students, irrespective of their social beliefs or political commitments. The UFS insists that no student or student grouping acts to disrupt campus life or insult university staff or denigrate fellow students on grounds of race, religion, language, gender, etc. This is very important to the UFS as it works to build a non-racial culture that respects our common humanity. Our students must learn that democracy and decency go hand in hand, and that part of learning at a university, is to learn to differ without resorting to a language of derision.
 
In short, the University of the Free State warmly welcomes full participation in politics, as in other spheres of student life, on all three its campuses.
 
Statement by Prof. Jonathan Jansen, UFS Vice-Chancellor and Rector.

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