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A day-residence drive: Exposing off-campus students to an on-campus home

25 August 2022 | Story Anthony Mthembu | Photo Supplied

The impact of COVID-19 on students who started their studies at the UFS in 2020 and 2021, is the fact that they had to experience the UFS student life virtually. As such, the ability to experience day-residence culture was minimal.

Consequently, the SRC: Day Residences, Nontando Kalipa, along with representatives from the seven day residences and the SRC, visited off-campus accommodation as a means to market day residences. The initiative ran from 1 to 4 August 2022. “We went to various communes and other student accommodation such as Quattro, CampusKey, and ResPublica, and explained our mandate as SRC: Day Residences to the off-campus students,” Kalipa expressed.

The Importance of the Initiative

According to Kalipa, there is a lack of knowledge about the role and relevance of day residences in student life; this was seen in the responses received from some of the off-campus students who were approached during the outreach. “We came across some students who had never heard of day residences, and others who knew of them but didn’t really understand their function,” stated Kalipa. Therefore, she insisted that representatives from the respective day residences should also be involved in the initiative. “The RC primes were there specifically to share their experiences about day residences with off-campus students,” said Kalipa.

The Relevance of Day Residences in Student Life

“Day residences offer a holistic student experience, so off-campus students can expect any of the seven day residences to assist them in becoming well-rounded individuals,” expressed Corbin Butler, the incoming SRC for Day Residences. These spaces offer off-campus students access to cultural and sporting activities, such as Stagedoor, SingOff, and basketball tournaments, among others. On-campus students have the advantage of being exposed to other students from all walks of life and interacting with them consistently. As such, Butler maintains that day residences aim to bridge the existing gap by creating that very same experience for off-campus students. “We don’t want you to just get a degree and leave, we also want to capacitate you with life skills, and that’s the benefit of being part of a day residence,” Butler stated.

News Archive

'Structures of Dominion and Democracy' by David Goldblatt at the Johannes Stegmann Art Gallery

2015-08-03

Photograph by David Goldblatt, On August 16 2012 South African Police shot striking mineworkers of the Lonmin platinum mines, killing 34 and wounding 78 within a radius of 350 metres of this koppie, where the men used to meet. Seventeen of the men, seeking shelter among boulders from police fire, were shot with seemingly lethal intent, some with their hands up in surrender, none were given medical assistance for their wounds. Beyond is the Lonmin smelter, which stood idle during the strike. Marikana, North-West Province, 11 May 2014.

The University of the Free State, in partnership with the Goodman Gallery, presents the exhibition, 'Structures of Dominion and Democracy', by renowned South African photographer David Goldblatt.

This exhibition, which runs from 13 July to 7 August 2015 on the Bloemfontein Campus, is dedicated to the series, “Structures”, one of the major bodies of works by Goldblatt. For over three decades, Goldblatt has travelled South Africa, photographing sites and structures weighted with historical narrative: monuments, private, religious and secular, which reveal something about the people who built them. These sites allow us a glimpse into the everyday. Each place is a repository, a landscape containing an epic story that has involved whole communities: the experience sometimes told through the memorialising of remarkable individuals.

The exhibition, Structures of Dominion and Democracy, traverses two distinct eras in South Africa history. As Goldblatt explains: "Over the years, I have photographed South African structures, which I found eloquent, of the dominion which Whites gradually came to exert over all of South Africa and its peoples. That time of domination began in 1660 when Jan van Riebeeck ordered a cordon to be erected of blockhouses and barriers that would exclude the indigenous population from access to the first European settlement in South Africa and its herds, lands, water, and grazing. The time of domination ended on the 2nd of February 1990, when, on behalf of the government and the Whites of South Africa, President FW de Klerk effectively abdicated from power. Beginning in 1999 and continuing to the present, I have photographed some structures that are eloquent of our still nascent democracy. In the belief that, in what we build we express much about what we value, I have looked at South African structures as declarations of our value systems, our ethos.”

Johannes Stegmann Art Gallery, UFS Sasol Library
University of the Free State
206 Nelson Mandela Ave
Bloemfontein

Gallery hours:
Monday to Friday 08:30 – 16:30

Entrance: Free
Enquiries: 051 401 2706, dejesusav@ufs.ac.za

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