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UFS 2020 Thought-Leader Webinar Series: ‘Post-COVID-19, Post-Crisis’

31 July 2020 | Story Lacea Loader

As a public higher-education institution in South Africa with a responsibility to contribute to public discourse, the University of the Free State (UFS) will be presenting the 3rd UFS Thought-Leader Series in collaboration with Vrye Weekblad as part of the Vrystaat Literature Festival’s online initiative, VrySpraak-digitaal.

This year, higher-education institutions globally are placed in the challenging context of COVID-19. Aware and grounded in the reality that the world will not return to the normality of pre-COVID-19, our responsibility as scholars still remains to contribute to public discourse and to offer innovative solutions that will impact the lives of people nationally and globally in order to help them understand and adapt to a new world order.

Against this background and context, this year’s debates focus on ‘Post-COVID-19, Post-Crisis’, with Health and Modelling, Politics, Economy, and Predictions for 2021 as the sub-themes. Placed in a COVID-19 context, and in lieu of the Vrystaat Arts Festival, the series will be presented virtually in the form of one webinar per month during the period August 2020 to November 2020.

Date: 13 August 2020
Topic: Health and Modelling
Time: 11:30-13:00
RSVP: Alicia Pienaar, pienaaran1@ufs.ac.za

Facilitator:

Max du Preez
Editor: Vrye Weekblad
Biography

Introduction and welcome:

Prof Francis Petersen
Rector and Vice-Chancellor, UFS

Panellists:

Prof Salim Abdool Karim
Director: Centre for the AIDS Programme of Research in South Africa (CAPRISA)
Chair: South African Ministerial Advisory Committee on COVID-19
Biography

Prof Glenda Gray
President and CEO: South African Medical Research Council (SAMRC)
Biography

Prof Felicity Burt
NRF-DST South African Research Chair in vector-borne and zoonotic pathogens research
Biography

News Archive

UFS awards honorary doctorates during spring graduation ceremony

2004-09-20

The University of the Free State (UFS) will award three honorary doctorates this week during its spring graduation ceremony.

The graduation ceremony will take place on Wednesday 22 September 2004 and the honorary doctorates are Dr Calvin Seerveld (D Phil (hc), Prof YK Seedat (MD (hc) and Dr Mary Seely (D Sc (hc).

“The doctorates come from a wide spectrum of specialty fields and serve as proof of the UFS’s policy to give recognition to people who stand out and make a difference,” says Prof Frederick Fourie, Rector and Vice-Chancellor of the UFS.

Dr Calvin Seerveld (D Phil (hc) will receive an honorary doctorate for his academic leadership at the Institute for Christian Studies in Toronto and the wide international recognition he has received throughout his career in various subject areas, eg philosophical aesthesia, the theory of art, the methodology of the description of the history of art and continental philosophy.

Prof YK Seedat (MD (hc) will receive an honorary doctorate for his extraordinary contribution to medicine in South Africa. His research in the field of hypertension in blacks received international recognition and significantly contributed to the understanding of the pathophysiology of this condition.

In the mid-eighties Prof Seedat was instrumental in supporting the bid from the Faculty of Medicine at the University of the Orange Free State (UOFS) to host the first Colleges of Medicine of South Africa examination in Bloemfontein. This started a tradition that is still being maintained. Prof Seedat is a researcher at the Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of Kwa-Zulu Natal.

The Executive Director of the Desert Research Foundation of Namibia, Dr Mary Seely (D Sc (hc)), will be honored for the impact she has made on the development of environmental management in the drier parts of the southern African subcontinent. Though her research has been concentrated in Namibia, she has affected the professional lives of large numbers of ecologists, environmental scientists and environmental managers.

According to Prof Fourie the three doctorates form part of the greater group of 18 who will be honored by the UFS during its centenary year. The last group will be receiving their honorary doctorates in October 2004.

Media release
Issued by: Lacea Loader
Media Representative
Tel: (051) 401-2584
Cell: 083 645 2454
E-mail: loaderl.stg@mail.uovs.ac.za
20 September 2004

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