Latest News Archive

Please select Category, Year, and then Month to display items
Categories
UFS News Media Release Research
Years
2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 2025
Months
January February March April May June July August September October November December
Previous Archive
17 July 2020 | Story Thabo Kessah | Photo UFS photo archive
Education researchers dominated the recent CTL Excellence in Teaching and Learning Awards on the UFS Qwaqwa Campus.
The Faculty of Education on the Qwaqwa Campus has recently dominated the Centre for Teaching and Learning’s (CTL) Excellence in Learning and Teaching Awards, as well as the Research Awards for 2019/2020. The faculty’s Drs Bunmi Omodan and Maria Tsakeni were placed first and second respectively in the category Research in Teaching and Learning. This was on top of the faculty’s accolade in the category Faculty/Department that is the most involved in Teaching and Learning events and practices on the Qwaqwa Campus.

“The faculty is indeed proud to be associated with these fine scholars and the excellence they represent,” said Faculty of Education Dean,Prof Loyiso Jita, in a congratulatory message to the faculty members.

“To the winners, please continue to live our emerging vision of ‘Representing and using our diversity, excellence in scholarship on research and teaching, and an ethic of care and service’ to produce teachers with balanced knowledge and skills and a consciousness to serve all of society in its diversity,” he added.

Winners from the faculty for the Research Awards were Dr Bekithemba Dube as the Most Prolific Researcher in the Faculty of Education and Dr Sekitla Makhasane in the category Best Emerging Researcher in the Faculty of Education.
It is the first time in years that all four faculties received Learning and Teaching Awards. Institutional awards are scheduled for September 2020. 

The full list of winners is as follows:

Excellence in Learning and Teaching Awards:

Category: Research in Learning and Teaching:
Position 1: Dr Bunmi Omodan (Faculty of Education)
Position 2: Dr Maria Tsakeni (Faculty of Education)

Category: Innovation in Learning and Teaching:
Position 1: Dr Diana Breshears and Rentia Engelbrecht (The Humanities)
Position 2: Prof Aliza le Roux (Natural and Agricultural Sciences)
Position 3: Lebohang Masoabi (Economic and Management Sciences)
Position 4: Dr Maria Tsakeni (Faculty of Education)

Category: Faculty / Departmental Award
Faculty of Education (with special mention of Dr Cias Tsotetsi; Dr Maria Tsakeni; Thabiso Motsoeneng; and Dr Sekitla Makhasane).

Research Awards per faculty:
Education
Most Prolific Researcher: Dr Bekithemba Dube (School of Education Studies)
Best Emerging Researcher: Dr Sekitla Makhasane (School of Education Studies)

The Humanities
Most Prolific Researcher: Dr Oliver Nyambi (Department of English)
Best Emerging Researcher: Dr Tshepo Moloi (Department of History)

Natural and Agricultural Sciences
Most Prolific Researcher: Prof Francis Dejene (Department of Physics)
Best Emerging Researcher: Dr Lehlohonolo Koao (Department of Physics)

Economic and Management Sciences
Most Prolific Researcher: Dr Calvin Mudzingiri (Department of Economics and Finance)
Best Emerging Researcher: Dr Charity Gomo (Department of Economics and Finance)

News Archive

Penny Siopis recipient of the prestigious Helgaard Steyn Award
2015-12-15

Vanya Terblance (ABSA Trust representative) hands over the award to Penny Siopis
Photo: Valentino Ndaba

On Friday 4 December 2015, Penny Siopis, the well-known Cape Town-based artist, who has been exhibiting her work locally and internationally since 1975, was presented with the 2015 Helgaard Steyn Award and a prize of R 550 000 for her painting entitled Swarm.

A quadrennial award lunch was hosted by the University of the Free State (UFS) Johannes Stegman Gallery in conjunction with the Helgaard Steyn and ABSA Trusts. The Helgaard Steyn Trust was established by the estate of Dr Jan Steyn and was named after his father and his brother who was the last president of the Orange Free State Republic.

Swarm, a 2011 painting using ink and glue on canvas, depicts a swarm of bees in a complex, dynamic, and intense manner. It earned the prestigious award that is dedicated to the promotion of artistic culture based on the adjudicators’ unanimous decision. Angela de Jesus, curator of the Johannes Stegmann Art Gallery at the UFS, Annali Dempsey of the University of Johannesburg Gallery, and Prof John Botha, Associate Professor in Art History at North West University, made up the 2015 panel of judges.

On receiving the award, Siopis thanked the Steyn family, the judges, and the people who nominated her. “I am struck by how fantastic it feels to be acknowledged. It is extraordinary when people are struck by what was your own world and the intensity buzzing in your head.”

According to Prof Botha, “Naturally the work of art is chosen on grounds of artistic merit and in the context of contemporary values with regards to both form and content.”

The award-winning painter studied Fine Arts at Rhodes University and Portsmouth University in United Kingdom. Apart from lecturing Fine Arts at the University of the Witwatersrand, she is an honorary professor at University of Cape Town Michaelis School of Fine Art. She has also taught at the Natal Technicon in Durban.

Siopis has received numerous awards for her work, including a British Council Scholarship, a Merit Award at the 2nd Cape Town Triennial, and the Atelier Award for a residency at the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris, in addition to the Alexander S Onassis fellowship for research in Greece.

Economic and Management Sciences

Education

Health Sciences

The Humanities

Law

Natural and Agricultural Sciences

Theology and Religion

Open Distance Learning

Business School

We use cookies to make interactions with our websites and services easy and meaningful. To better understand how they are used, read more about the UFS cookie policy. By continuing to use this site you are giving us your consent to do this.

Accept