Latest News Archive

Please select Category, Year, and then Month to display items
Categories
UFS News Media Release Research
Years
2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024
Months
January February March April May June July August September October November December
Previous Archive
02 September 2020 | Story Lacea Loader | Photo Charl Devenish
Deputy Minister visit
From the left are: Deputy Minister of Higher Education, Science and Technology, Buti Manamela; Prof Prakash Naidoo, Vice-Rector: Operations at the UFS; and Dr Ramneek Ahluwalia, Chief Executive Officer of Higher Health.
“The work that the University of the Free State (UFS) is doing to ensure that students get the necessary support is quite impressive. The university is saving the academic year to save lives.” These were the words of the Deputy Minister of Higher Education, Science and Technology, Buti Manamela, during a visit to the university’s Bloemfontein Campus on 31 August 2020.

The visit was part of the Deputy Minister’s visit to higher education institutions in Bloemfontein to assess the academic state of readiness and to monitor the safety protocols for the phased re-opening of campuses during Level 2 of the national lockdown.

The delegation, which also consisted of representatives from Higher Health led by the Chief Executive Officer Dr Ramneek Ahluwalia, attended a briefing session in the Council Chambers before visiting various venues on campus. In his opening and welcoming remarks, Prof Prakash Naidoo, Vice-Rector: Operations, said that the safety, health, and well-being of staff and students remain the university’s priority. “Extensive planning has gone into making sure that the university complies with the national COVID-19 protocols and regulations and that our campuses are safe and ready for the return of students. Sufficient hygiene measures are in place, as well as adaptions to ensure physical distancing. The wearing of masks, physical distancing, and hand sanitising remain compulsory on all the campuses,” said Prof Naidoo.

“A Special Executive Group (SEG) was already established by the Rector and Vice-Chancellor, Prof Francis Petersen, at the beginning of March 2020. The SEG meets weekly to discuss and decide on the university’s response to COVID-19 as this pandemic develops over time. Consisting of eight task teams, the SEG is the decision-making entity that responds rapidly and in a coordinated manner to combat the threats to business continuity. One of the task teams is specifically looking at the wellness of our students and staff to make sure that this important aspect is taken care of,” said Prof Naidoo.

During a presentation of the university’s Multimodal Teaching and Learning Plan for the completion of the 2020 academic year, Prof Francois Strydom, Senior Director: Centre for Teaching and Learning, said that the university has an evidence-based approach towards remote multimodal teaching, learning, and assessment. “For instance, our vulnerable students were identified early in the lockdown, and 16 strategies were put in place to ensure that no student is left behind. 99,95% of our students were active on Blackboard. We are developing plans for the 0,05% of students who were not able to participate in learning, so that they can continue their learning journey with the UFS,” said Prof Strydom.

In his closing remarks, Deputy Minister Manamela commended the university management on the initiatives to save the academic year. He also indicated his appreciation for the informative session and encouraged the university to keep on motivating students and staff to be attentive to their behaviour and to remain careful about their health and well-being.

The programme was concluded with a visit to a number of venues on campus, including the examination venues, the Health and Wellness Clinic, the Pathogen Research Laboratory of the Division of Virology and a student housing unit.

News Archive

Prof Antjie Krog speaks on verbalising revulsion and the collusion of men
2015-06-26

From the left are Prof Lucius Botes, UFS: Dean of the Faculty of the Humanities; Prof Helene Strauss, UFS: Department of English; Prof Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela, UFS: Trauma, Forgiveness and Reconciliation Studies; Prof Antjie Krog, UCT: Department Afrikaans and Dutch; Dr Buhle Zuma, UCT: Department of Psychology. Both Prof Strauss and Dr Zuma are partners in the Mellon Foundation research project.

“This is one of the bitterest moments I have ever endured. I would rather see my daughter carried away as a corpse than see her raped like this.”

This is one of 32 testimonies that were locked away quietly in 1902. These documents, part of the NC Havenga collection, contain the testimonies of Afrikaner women describing their experiences of sexual assault and rape at the hands of British soldiers during the South African War.

This cluster of affidavits formed the foundation of a public lecture that Prof Antjie Krog delivered at the University of the Free State’s (UFS) Bloemfontein Campus on Tuesday 23 June 2015. The lecture, entitled ‘They Couldn’t Achieve their Goal with Me: Narrating Rape during the South African War’, was the third instalment in the Vice-Chancellor’s Lecture Series on Trauma, Memory, and Representations of the Past. The series is hosted by Prof Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela, Senior Research Professor in Trauma, Forgiveness, and Reconciliation Studies at the UFS, as part of a five-year research project funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Verbalising revulsion

The testimonies were taken down during the last two months of the war, and “some of the women still had marks and bruises on their bodies as evidence,” Prof Krog said. The victims’ words, on the other hand, struggled to express the story their bodies told.

What are the nouns for that which one sees? What words are permissible in front of men? How does one process revulsion verbally? These are the barriers the victims – raised with Victorian reserve – faced while trying to express their trauma, Prof Krog explained.

The collusion of men

When the war ended, there was a massive drive to reconcile the Boers and the British. “Within this process of letting bygones be bygones,” Prof Krog said, “affidavits of severe violations by white men had no place. Through the collusion of men, prioritising reconciliation between two white male hierarchies, these affidavits were shelved, and, finally, had to suffer an embargo.”

“It is only when South Africa accepted a constitution based on equality and safety from violence,” Prof Krog said, “that the various levels of deeply-rooted brutality, violence, and devastation of men against the vulnerable in society seemed to burst like an evil boil into the open, leaving South African aghast in its toxic suppurations. As if, for many decades, we did not know it was there and multiplied.”

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