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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

Centre for Human Rights at UFS geared to make impact in the region
2017-03-02

Description: Centre for Human Rights  Tags: Centre for Human Rights

SAHRC situated in the Mabaleng building,
Bloemfontein Campus
Photo: Hannes Pieterse

After approval by the Rectorate, Senate and Council of the University of the Free State (UFS), the Free State Centre for Human Rights (FSCHR) began operations on 1 January 2016 on the Bloemfontein Campus, under the leadership of Prof Leon Wessels, founding member of the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) as the Acting Director of the centre.

Human rights remain, undoubtedly, the dominant moral and political language of our times and thus demands multi-layered scholarly engagement as it influences national and international relations, and sets standards for political and democratic practice.

Establishment of centre fulfilment of court order
Top on the centre’s agenda will be to resolve the debate with the SAHRC relating to the February 2011 post-Reitz agreement of the UFS, which was subsequently made an order of the Equality Court. This order compelled the UFS to establish such a centre. The FSCHR presents new opportunities for cooperation between the FSCHR, the SAHRC and other stakeholders to the benefit of the UFS and the broader community.

Three divisions of the centre to achieve its mandate
The centre consists of three inter-related divisions with the potential to stimulate critical scholarship in the field of human rights through its postgraduate and research division. This is reflected in the centre’s mission to deepen the study of human rights and further its praxes by developing novel methodologies in which traditional human rights issues can be complemented by interdisciplinary and multi-disciplinary approaches.

The Advocacy division of the centre will promote human rights among UFS staff and students, and the surrounding community. The aim is to establish a vibrant human rights culture in and across all campuses in which rights of all are respected and protected.

The Legal Services division will provide trustworthy legal services to individuals and groups whose fundamental rights have been abused, to improve the professional capacity of paralegals, students, counsellors, social workers, candidate attorneys and attorneys, equipping them to deal with cases of infringement of constitutional and human rights and to increase access to justice to rural and indigent communities in the Free State.

Centre key in positioning UFS as a regional leader in human rights issues
The centre, with its inter- and multi-disciplinary approach, has the potential to become one of the flagship projects of the UFS, and will strengthen both the Academic and Human Projects. A UFS human rights centre not only makes sound scholarly and practical sense, it also has limitless symbolic value. The location of one of UFS’s campuses within the city of Bloemfontein (the judicial capital of South Africa) and having partnered with the National University of Lesotho (NUL), is historically and geographically significant. This has a great impact on the UFS, the Free State province as a whole, and the Kingdom of Lesotho.  

The FSCHR will be officially launched on 14 March 2017 with Professor Bongani Majola, newly elected chairperson of the SAHRC, as guest speaker.

For further information on the work of the centre, please contact FSCHR@ufs.ac.za / +27 51 401 7216.

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