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EMS faculty successful recipient of Nurturing Emerging Scholars Programme

21 July 2020 | Story Nitha Ramnath | Photo UFS photo archive

The Department of Business Management within the Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences is one of four successful recipients of the Nurturing Emerging Scholars Programme (NESP), which aims to recruit honours graduates who demonstrate academic ability and express an early interest in the possibility of an academic career.

“The NESP is a mechanism that addresses a potential shortcoming in the department in the medium to long term. Most of the academics in the department specialise either in entrepreneurship or marketing. As such, the availability of academics with interdisciplinary business knowledge who can teach and do research across the different sub-fields of business management is limited,” says Prof Brownhilder Neneh, Associate Professor in the Department of Business Management.

Once graduates enter the programme – as NESP master’s graduates they form part of a resource pool from which new academics can be recruited.

Prof Neneh continues: “Considering the imminent retirement of academics in the department, the NESP provides an opportunity to recruit an academic who is able to work with experienced academics, gain experience, and ‘prepare’ the person to become an expert across the different fields in the department.”

“This programme would assist in succession planning within the department as well as training individuals within academia,” she says.

According to Prof Neneh, access to this funding opportunity will further strengthen and expand the path that the department has embarked upon as far as striving for excellence in teaching, research, and community engagement is concerned, thereby contributing to address key societal challenges. “Appointing an NESP candidate would be an ideal opportunity to recruit an academic who will be able to work with the senior staff and gain experience and teaching/research competencies relevant to the 4IR, and ‘prepare’ the person to become the business management expert in the department,” she says.

News Archive

Compassion improves psychological well-being and reduces emotional distress

2017-09-27

Participants in the Kindness Project sharing a
Random Act of Kindness with the cleaning staff,
Mathabiso Sehlabaka and Madineo Mokoena.
Photo: Thabo Kessah

Various studies have reported that the cultivation and practice of compassion may result in improved self-esteem, a decrease in depression and anxiety, increase in subjective well-being, and overall improvement in physical and psychological health. This is according to Counselling Psychologist, Tobias van den Bergh, during the Kindness Project (KP) on the Qwaqwa Campus.

“Students that are involved in this project have shown statistically significant improvements in overall well-being and compassion towards themselves and others,” said Van den Bergh, the project leader and Head of Department: Student Counselling and Development, Qwaqwa Campus.

“In addition, student participants of the compassion-based intervention showed a decrease in their experience of debilitating emotions and depressive symptoms, as well as a significant increase in measurements of positive affect (an indication of life vitality), self-compassion, and well-being. Humans appear to be genetically programmed to be kind. Studies have shown that the same brain structures that are activated when we procreate (i.e. have sex) or eat chocolates, are activated when we are kind. Thus, it means showing an instinctive predisposition towards compassion for our kin and others. Kindness also appears to be contagious. Whenever we observe kindness or experience kindness ourselves, we are much more likely to be compassionate towards our fellow human beings,” he said.

The KP is based on the Science of Compassion, with participants completing a four-week compassion-based intervention where they learned about and practised self-compassion and compassion towards others. In the last week of the programme, participants completed various Random Acts of Kindness off and on the campus.

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