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
22 October 2021 | Story Eugene Seegers | Photo Jolandi Griesel
Dr Arnelle Mostert receives the Vice-Chancellor’s Award for excellence in learning and teaching from the Vice-Rector: Academic, Dr Engela van Staden, at the annual Learning and Teaching Awards ceremony held in Bloemfontein on 13 October 2021.
The annual Learning and Teaching conference was held virtually by the Centre for Teaching and Learning from 13 to 15 September 2021. The conference, with the theme Quality and Innovation for a New Blended Learning Future, culminated in the annual UFS Learning and Teaching Awards, held on the Bloemfontein Campus on 13 October.

Highlights from Learning and Teaching Awards

This year, the Centre for Teaching and Learning recognised various academic staff members in different learning and teaching categories during the annual Learning and Teaching Awards ceremony. The categories included innovation in learning and teaching (curriculum design / assessment / student engagement / technology-enhanced learning and teaching); research in learning and teaching (novice and advanced); as well as the Vice-Chancellor’s Award. The Vice-Chancellor’s Award acknowledges all-round excellence in the field of learning and teaching.

Dr Arnelle Mostert from the Faculty of Health Sciences, who brought home the Vice-Chancellor’s Award, says, “To win this award has been a dream of mine for a very long time. I am so excited and grateful, as this prize is the culmination of years of dedication and hard work. Excellence in teaching and learning, in my eyes, lies in the small acts we do daily: Improving one lecture at a time, one word of encouragement, helping one student understand a concept, and most of all, touching one heart at a time with kindness and compassion. These small acts create a ripple effect in many peoples’ lives, as the students we teach can touch the lives of many others."

Not only have academic staff been rewarded, but the most valued professional award recognised the contribution of academic support professionals towards the advancement of learning and teaching at the institution and acknowledged dedication, innovation, and excellence in the support sphere. 

Gugu Tiroyabone, winner of the Most Valued Professional award, says of this accolade, “For me, this recognition affirms the commitment of the UFS to Goal 1 of its Strategic Plan 2018-2022: To improve student success and well-being. Reflecting on the past 19 months, a changing educational climate, and an evolving learning and teaching landscape, I appreciate how the new challenges have helped us grow as an institution, both as staff and as students. I am extremely thankful to work alongside a resilient team that is committed to holistic student success both inside and outside the classroom.”

For the first time, the Departmental Award for learning and teaching was bestowed on the School of Accounting (Bloemfontein Campus) and the School of Education Studies (Qwaqwa Campus). These two departments have shown great commitment and involvement in improving learning and teaching under the leadership of Prof Frans Prinsloo and Dr Bekithemba Dube.

This year, the best Qwaqwa and the best Bloemfontein conference paper presentations each received an award. The awards were won by Dr Brian Sibanda (CTL, Qwaqwa Campus) for his paper Practicing decoloniality in English Academic Literacies, and Dr Rick de Villiers (The Humanities, Bloemfontein Campus) for his presentation on Close reading at a distance: Making remote learning intimate and intensive.


Highlights from conference

Day 1: The conference was opened by the international keynote speaker, Dr Carl S Moore, Assistant Chief Academic Officer at the University of the District of Columbia, who gave the presentation Access to Learning. This presentation highlighted the role of online and blended learning within the future of higher education.

Day 2: Guest keynote speaker, Dr Noluthando Toni, Director of Teaching Development at Nelson Mandela University, presented Towards re-imagined blended learning and teaching: Heeding student voices and participation to bolster education practices. Dr Toni’s presentation focused on contextualising the new blended learning and teaching environment within South Africa, and shared experiences from her institution during their remote learning and teaching strategy (2020/21).

Day 3: The guest keynote speakers, Dr Adriana Botha (educational psychologist and senior educational consultant: Blackboard) and Dennis Nevels, presented the paper From Conventional to Online Assessment – Rethink and Innovate, in which they focused on providing academic staff with innovative practices and ideas around online assessment.

Throughout the three days, UFS academic and support staff members shared quality learning and teaching projects and innovations through academic papers in different conference tracks.

News Archive

African Student Affairs Conference a huge success
2011-05-24

 
Mr Rudi Buys, UFS Dean of Student Affairs, Mr. Folabi Obembe, Managing Director of Worldview International, Ms Birgit Schreiber, Director of the Centre for Student support services at the University of the Western Cape, Dr. Augustinah Duyilemi, Dean of Student Affairs at the Adekunleh Ajasin University in Nigeria, Dr. Christina Lunceford, assistant Director for the Centre for Research on Educational Access and Leadership at California State University in America, and Prof. Cecil Bodibe, student affairs veteran and consultant.
Photo: Earl Coetzee

The African Student Affairs Conference (ASAC), which took place on our Main Campus last week, was a major success, with two days of lectures and discussions and two pleasant social gatherings, where delegates had the opportunity to get to know each other.

The conference, hosted on African soil for the first time, and co-hosted by the University of the Western Cape (UWC), started on Wednesday 18 May 2011 with an informal welcoming session. Delegates got to meet each other and Mr Rudi Buys, UFS Dean of Student Affairs, explained the meaning of South African words like "kuier" and "lekker'.

The official start of events took place on Thursday 19 May 2011, in the Reitz Hall in our Centenary Complex. The conference was attended by delegates from universities across the continent and aimed to place the focus on issues relating to student affairs in an African context.

Delegates shared and exchanged strategies, ideas and resources, and discussed issues related to the work of student affairs professionals. The conference hoped to promote an exchange of best practice and assist attendees in identifying successful programmes.

Among the topics discussed on the first day, were “Constructing Post-Conflict Democracy on campus: a case study of transformation of student governance and political engagement as post-conflict intervention”, by Mr. Buys, and a discussion on ways in which social and online media can be used to ease the challenges of student interaction, development and support, by Ms Birgit Schreiber, Director of the Centre for Student Support Services at UWC.

A panel discussion, led by Mr Buys and several members of our Interim Student Council (ISC), discussed the specific challenges faced at the UFS.  The importance of buy-in from role-players in decisions taken by University management in order to ensure their success, was discussed, using the UFS and our recent changes as an example.

The successful integration of residences on campus inevitably came under the spotlight and the recently resolved Reitz-saga was named as a catalyst in getting students less apathetic and more involved in attempts at creating racial and social harmony.

Dr Christina Lunceford, Assistant-Director of the Centre for Research on Educational Access and Leadership at California State University, presented a paper entitled A National Approach to Building Capacity in Student Affairs in South African Higher Education.

She commented on the fact that there is little or no philosophical framework or explicit theory that informs practice of student services in South Africa.

According to Dr Lunceford, student development should be a key concern for every department or unit within student services and emphasized the need for a centralized student development unit at each university.
She also touched on the need for institutions to implement support from international student affairs professional associations, professional development for student affairs practitioners, the utilization of technology to support professionals in the field, and working with international partners to explore future opportunities, as ways in which student affairs can be used to drive performance and change at universities.

The conference continued in the Scaena theatre on Friday 20 May 2011, with presentations by Dr Augustinah Duyileme, Dean of Student Affairs at Adekunle Ajasin University in Nigeria, and Prof. Bobby Mandew, Executive Director of Student Affairs at the University of Johannesburg (UJ).

Dr Duyileme presented a paper on the challenges faced by Nigerian universities with regard to student conflict and protests, which often turn violent, and how such violence can be curbed through proper planning and management.

Prof. Mandew presented a very well-received presentation on UJ’s successful off-campus housing initiative, which involves home-owners and business owners in the areas surrounding their campuses.

Their approach demonstrated how proper planning can prevent problems associated with over-population in private homes and conflict with neighbours of the university, usually related to an influx of students into residential neighbourhoods.

This problem is faced by many universities, as more and more students flock to universities on the continent and campus residents cannot accommodate them.

The conference came to a close on Friday, with most delegates agreeing that the exchange of knowledge which took place was extremely valuable.

Ms Deborah Lahlan, of Nigeria, said: “This is an important conference for Africa and it should become a regular event.”
 

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