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08 June 2020 | Story Valentino Ndaba | Photo Sonia Small
Prof Francis Petersen is one of the leaders in a prestigious international panel for a COVID-19 webinar involving Uganda, the Netherlands, and Morocco.

 

Webinar details
Date: Wednesday, 10 June 2020
Time: 13:00 South African time (14:00 East African Standard Time)

Webinar link: https://www.ruforum.org/introductory-note-webinar-1
To participate register here

University leaders from Africa and beyond will take part in a Regional Universities Forum for Capacity Building in Agriculture (RUFORUM) webinar on Wednesday, 10 June, to look at universities’ responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. Prof Francis Petersen, Rector and Vice-Chancellor of the University of the Free State, will be one of four panellists who will be the main speakers of the day. He is the only panellist from South Africa. 

Prof Petersen will participate alongside university leaders such as Prof Arthur Mol, Rector Magnificus of Wageningen University and Research in the Netherlands, Mr Hicham el Habti, Secretary General at the Mohammed VI Polytechnique University (UM6P) in Morocco, as well as Prof Barnabas Nawangwe, Vice-Chancellor of the Makerere University in Uganda. 

Getting together with other university leaders from the continent and abroad, speakers will share insights from their respective countries in dealing with the pandemic. The webinar takes place on 10 June 2020 at 13:00 South African time (14:00 East African Standard Time)

RUFORUM is a consortium of 46 universities in Eastern, Central, Western, and Southern Africa mandated to oversee graduate training and networks of specialisation in the countries and universities where it works. 

What is the webinar about?
The RUFORUM webinar titled ‘Learning from a crisis: University leaders’ response to the COVID-19 Pandemic', aims to tackle issues such as the immediate needs of universities, including staff realignment, dealing with the digital divide in the student community, institutional finance for operations and innovations in a changing landscape, and international students in a crisis moment. 

This webinar provides a great opportunity to galvanise collective responses from university leaders on this pandemic. It brings together universities from within and outside Africa on lessons learnt in confronting the immediate challenges and how they are resetting for a long-term perspective in the ‘new normal’. Interactions during this webinar will hopefully lead to a consensus on strengthening collective response and how universities can leverage one another in terms of the best practices and resources.  

The impact of the Coronavirus on higher learning institutions 
Given the devastation caused by COVID-19 across the world since its outbreak in China in December 2019, the impact has been felt in all spheres of the economy and global operations. Universities have also seen significant interruptions, including the UFS. Recently, RUFORUM conducted a study on the readiness of African universities to respond to COVID-19 and other natural disasters. This was meant to determine the level of preparedness of our institutions in facing this global pandemic and how to move forward as a continent while preserving the quality of the higher education that we deliver.  

The webinar will build on those findings and project a way forward in this unchartered territory of diminished financial resources, personal and academic challenges for staff, students, and institutional systems, the urgent need for improved infrastructure to respond to the demand for blended learning as well as remote learning approaches, and the limited mobility of students, academic and other staff, among others. Addressing these issues resulted in collaborations such as those initiated by RUFORUM.




News Archive

What did they learn at Stanford University?
2015-11-04

    

Members of the cohort with the
Vice-Chancellor and Rector of the UFS,
Prof Jonathan Jansen

Every year, since 2012, six second-year Kovsies are selected to take part in the elite Stanford Sophomore College Programme at the prestigious Stanford University in the United States. The University of the Free State and Oxford University are the only non-Stanford members of this exclusive course.

From 31 August to 15 September 2015, Farzaana Adam, Cornel Vermaak, Precious Mokwala, Tristan Van Der Spuy, Anje Venter, and Naushad Mayat undertook a three-week long academic exploration of multidisciplinary topics. These students attended seminars aligned with their respective fields of study from which they accumulated a wealth of knowledge.

This year’s cohort reflects on what they learned at Stanford University:

The significance of analyzing technology

One of the key points gathered by Farzaana Adam from the seminar, ‘Great Ideas in Computer Science’, was the necessity not to approach technology at face value. “Computer science goes beyond the technological products and social networks. By analysing the concepts underlying these technologies, many discoveries which have benefitted many fields of study have been made possible.”

Critical thinking in Arts and Science


“By combining different fields of study, one can obtain a greater perspective on the relevant fields,” said Cornel Vermaak, about what he garnered from a seminar titled ‘An Exploration of Art Materials: An intersection between the Arts and Science’. “This greater perspective enables one to evaluate problems critically,” he added.

Visual media substitutes oral narratives

“We were also taught different ways in which to interpret images, and how images influence society. Photography is a way to tell a story without actually having to say anything,” reflected Precious Mokwala, on ‘Photography: truth or fiction’

A lesson in business economics


Tristan Van Der Spuy received pointers pertaining to the stock exchange market    in ‘A Random Walk Down Wall Street’. “We looked at stock markets, and what influenced the stock prices of multiple companies, taking note of what should be looked at when investing in a company.”

Race relations and representation

‘The New Millenium Mix: Crossings between Race and Culture’ exposed Anje Venter to a global perspective on identity. “We explored the new generation of people that have mixed races and cultures, and how they are depicted in media and art.  We analysed the discrepancies and stereotypes of these depictions through film, novel, and short story studies, as well as through field trips to museums and art exhibitions.”

Overcoming the HIV/AIDS endemic


Naushad Mayat realised that “more teamwork and transparency between governments, chemists, social workers, and clinicians will be required for us to stem the flow [of HIV/AIDS],” in view of what he learned in a seminar on ‘HIV/AIDS: A Response to the AIDS Epidemic in the Bay Area’. “It is a daunting task. For the current generation of youth to tackle this epidemic now, we must stand together and be counted,” he added.



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