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09 September 2021 | Story Dr Nitha Ramnath
The university of the Free State is pleased to invite you to a lunchtime webinar titled, The impact of political influences on university governance structures. 
  
The political turmoil that disrupted different regions in South Africa in July 2021 has resulted in a renewed focus on the collective responsibility of higher education institutions to assist in solving the key challenges of poverty, inequality, unemployment, and violence in societies. We believe a specific area that needs to be explored more deeply, is how political complexities influence university governance structures. Join our panel of experts for what promises to be an insightful discussion.

Facilitator:

Vuyo Mvoko
Anchor: SABC

Panel:

Prof Mohamed Saleem Badat
Research Professor: College of Humanities, University of KwaZulu-Natal

Prof Thuli Madonsela
Law Trust Chair, Professor: Social Justice and Law,  Stellenbosch University 

Prof Chitja Twala
Vice-Dean: Faculty of the Humanities, University of the Free State

Prof Hermann Giliomee
Internationally renowned historian
 
Date: Wednesday, 22 September 2021
Time: 14:30
RSVP: Alicia Pienaar, pienaaran1@ufs.ac.za by 20 September 2021


Biographies of facilitator and speakers:


Mvoko is the anchor of The Watchdog, a prime-time current affairs show that attracts the biggest names in politics and public policy. It airs weekdays 20:00-21:00 on the SABC News channel (404 on the DSTV platform).
A seasoned journalist with almost 30 years of experience, he previously occupied several senior editorial positions, including stints as political editor for broadcasters such as the SABC and ENCA. He has also written columns for publications such as Business Day, Forbes Africa, and The Herald. 

Mvoko holds BA and MA degrees, and as part of the ‘SABC 8’, was the co-recipient of the 2016 Nat Nakasa Award for ‘courageous and fearless journalism’.

Saleem Badat is Research Professor in the College of Humanities, University of KwaZulu-Natal. He is the former vice-chancellor of the university currently known as Rhodes University and was the first chief executive officer of the Council on Higher Education. Between 2014 and 2018, he was the programme director of International Higher Education and Strategic Projects at the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation in New York. 

Saleem’s books include The Forgotten People: Political Banishment under Apartheid, Black Student Politics: Higher Education and Apartheid, and Black Man, You are on Your Own; the co-authored National Policy and a Regional Response in South African Higher Education, and the co-edited Apartheid Education and Popular Struggles in South Africa. His book chapters, journal articles, policy reports, and newspaper opinion pieces concern questions of equity, redress, and social justice in and through universities, and the decolonisation and transformation of universities in colonised societies. 

Prof Thulisile ‘Thuli’ Madonsela is the Law Trust Chair in Social Justice and a Law professor at Stellenbosch University. She is also the founder of the Thuma Foundation, an independent democracy leadership and literacy public benefit organisation, and is a widely published author.
 
A multiple award-winning legal professional with more than 50 national and global awards, and an advocate of the High Court of South Africa, Prof Madonsela served a seven-year term as the Public Protector of South Africa. She is credited for transforming the institution by enhancing its effectiveness in promoting good governance and integrity, and anticorruption in state affairs. Prof Madonsela has a global reputation for integrity, and strongly advocates for fearlessly enforcing accountability and justice in the exercise of public power and the use of public resources. 

Named one of the TIME100 most influential people in the world, Prof Madonsela is one of the drafters of the South African Constitution, and co-architect of several laws that have sought to anchor South Africa’s democracy. Among the laws she has helped draft are the Promotion of Equality and Prevention of Unfair Discrimination Act (PEPUDA), the Employment Equity Act (EEA), and the Recognition of Customary Marriages Act. She is also a co-architect and founding Chairperson of the African Ombudsman Research Centre and is also co-founder and one of the inaugural leaders of the South African Women Lawyers Association (SAWLA). 

Among numerous accolades, Prof Madonsela is a Paul Harris Fellow, recipient of Transparency International’s Integrity Award, the German Africa Prize, and African Anticorruption Crusader Award. She also spent a year at Harvard as an Advanced Leadership Fellow and is a Tallberg Global Leader, among others.

 

Prof Chitja Twala

Prof Chitja Twala is Associate Professor (Department of History) and Vice-Dean (Faculty of the Humanities) at the University of the Free State (UFS). He holds a PhD (History) from the same university. Twala has a substantial publication record on the history of liberation movements. He is the author of eight chapters (co-author of two) in The Road to Democracy in South Africa: Vol. 4 (1970-1990) and the Road to Democracy in South Africa: Vol. 6 (1990-1996), published in 2010, 2013, and 2019 respectively. He is the recipient of a Mellon Foundation grant and a National Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences (NIHSS) grant.  He had the following visiting/research fellowships: Harvard University (USA); Kwame Nkrumah Chair in the Institute of African Studies at the University of Ghana (Accra); and the University of California, Los Angeles (USA).
Hermann Giliomee was born in Sterkstroom in 1938 and grew up in the Western Cape. He first taught History at Stellenbosch University and then Political Studies at the University of Cape Town. He has been a visiting fellow at Yale University, the University of Cambridge, and the Woodrow Wilson Centre in Washington DC. He has often published opinion pieces in South African newspapers. He is married to Annette van Coller. 

News Archive

State of our campuses: UFS closes campuses until Friday 28 October 2016 to readjust academic programme
2016-10-15

UFS announces strategy for completion of the 2016 academic year

Agreement between UFS management and student leadership in relation to residences

After almost four weeks of student protests about fees at the University of the Free State (UFS) and the subsequent suspension of the academic programme and closing of campuses, the senior leadership announced on 14 October 2016 a strategy to ensure that students will be able to complete the 2016 academic year.

The university on 13 October 2016 announced that it will shut down its Bloemfontein and South Campuses until 28 October 2016 for crucial and complex arrangements to be put in place to readjust the academic calendar and ensure that all students can complete their studies. The senior leadership did, however, make it clear that the university will not be shutting down for the remainder of 2016.

No teaching and learning activities at undergraduate and honours level will be offered between 17 October and 28 October 2016. The university will re-start teaching and learning at undergraduate and honours level in the first week of November 2016.

However, teaching and learning will not take place in the classrooms during November 2016, but through a different mode of delivery that consists of a combination of printed and recorded lectures, study materials and learning aids that will be provided by the university and delivered through Blackboard. In this manner no attempts at disrupting the rest of the academic year will affect our students’ academic programme. Students, however, will sit for the exam on campus.

Students in residence accommodation can return to campus as from 29 October 2016 and it is recommended that students who do not have off-campus internet access return to campus in order to access study material to complete the academic year.A new timetable for exams is still being developed and will be communicated as soon as the arrangements have been finalised.

Faculties have been differently affected by the loss of teaching time. Some faculties like the Faculty of Law have completed their curriculum, while other faculties like the Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences require more teaching time. Some faculties, like the Faculty of Health Sciences, cannot do teaching through alternative modes of delivery.

The needs of the different faculties have been taken into account for developing a rescue plan to complete the 2016 academic year.

  • The Faculty of Health Sciences will continue its classes and clinical rotations as normal for all three schools on the Bloemfontein Campus and in the relevant hospitals. All students registered in programmes in the Faculty of Health Sciences will stay in residences for the full period of their studies and exams. Final-year medical students will graduate in December 2016 as expected.
  • In the Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences, final-year students for the Certificate in the Theory of Accounting (CTA) will stay on campus during October through to December 2016 and their classes and tests will not change.
  • Arrangements for all other faculties and programmes are being prepared and within the next week, students and parents/guardians will receive communication about how curriculum content will be completed and when the final exams will take place.
  • The university is extending the academic year so that we can recuperate all the lost teaching and learning time. The qualifications conferred on the 2016 class will be of the same quality and standards as all UFS qualifications.

The UFS is and will remain a fundamentally contact teaching and learning education university. However, under the current circumstances faced not only by the UFS, but higher-education institutions across the country, the best way of ensuring the integrity of the academic programmes in most faculties is by using an alternative way of teaching and learning. Other South African universities have chosen the same approach to be able to complete the academic year.

Instead of students going to class, they will have content delivered to them where they are (library, computer labs, their own computers, etc.) through Blackboard and printed and electronic material. This is a different way of learning but students will be carefully guided and supported.

Faculties are currently preparing all the necessary materials and instructions to support student learning.Standards and quality will be the same as if students were attending classes. Some faculties require practical laboratory work as part of their curriculum. The exam timetable will be adapted for these students to be able to complete their practical work when the academic activities commences in November 2016. The relevant faculties will communicate the schedule of practical work directly to the students.

Students in their final year will complete their studies during 2016. It is possible that in some cases the graduation ceremony for these students will be in June 2017 instead of April 2017. This will not prejudice students with bursaries, or committed employment in law firms or other businesses. The university will provide the necessary academic transcripts as proof of the completion of the relevant qualifications. None of these changes will affect postgraduate students.

The university will maintain regular communication with students and parents/guardians to update them on the new exams timetable.Faculties will communicate directly with students about issues related to their programmes.

“One of the areas in which significant progress was made, is that we were able to agree on a basis for stability with student leaders. The student protests occurred during an important time in the university’s academic calendar and the readjustment of our academic programme has put tremendous pressure on academic and support services staff, and created anxieties for parents,” said Prof Nicky Morgan, Acting Rector of the UFS.

“The senior leadership restates its commitment to free education as well as its willingness to stand together with students and other public universities to impress on government the urgency to decide on a time frame for the roll-out of free higher education for the poor and missing middle. We will use the next two weeks to meet with the leadership of Universities South Africa to coordinate collective action in this regard. We will furthermore also roll out a series of activities to inform and educate students and the general public on different models and experiences of providing free higher education,” he said.

The strategy to readjust the 2016 academic year is applicable to students on the Bloemfontein and South Campuses.


Released by:
Lacea Loader (Director: Communication and Brand Management)
Telephone: +27 51 401 2584 | +27 83 645 2454
Email: news@ufs.ac.za | loaderl@ufs.ac.za
Fax: +27 51 444 6393

 

State of our campuses #15: UFS closes campuses until Friday 28 October 2016 to readjust academic programme

State of our campuses #14: All academic activities on UFS campuses remain suspended on 13 and 14 October 2016

State of our campuses #13: Availability of information about plans for remainder of UFS 2016 calendar year

State of our campuses #12: All academic activities at UFS campuses suspended for 11 and 12 October 2016

State of our campuses #11: Academic activities on UFS campuses continue

State of our campuses #10: Impact of non-completion of the 2016 academic year on UFS students 

State of our campuses #9: Academic programme on all UFS campuses to resume on Monday 10 October 2016

State of our campuses #8:  UFS extends vacation as from 28 September until 7 October 2016, 28 September 2016

State of our campuses #7: All three UFS campuses will be closed today, 27 September 2016.

State of our campuses #6: All UFS campuses reopen on Tuesday 27 September 2016

State of our campuses #5: UFS campuses to remain closed on Monday 26 September 2016

State of our campuses #4: Decisions about the UFS academic calendar

State of our campuses #3: UFS campuses closed until Friday 23 September 2016 

State of our campuses #2: UFS Bloemfontein and South Campuses closed on Tuesday 20 September 2016 (19 September 2016)

State of our campuses #1: Academic activities suspended on UFS Bloemfontein Campus (19 September 2016)

 

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