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22 February 2022 | Story Lacea Loader | Photo Sonia Small (Kaleidoscope Studios)
Dr Nicholas Pearce
Dr Nicholas Pearce, Head of the Department of Surgery, and recipient of the Chancellor’s Medal.

At a meeting held on 26 November 2021, the Council of the University of the Free State (UFS) approved the awarding of the UFS Chancellor’s Medal for outstanding service to Dr Nicholas Pearce, Head of the Department of Surgery in the Faculty of Health Sciences. 

Heading the Free State Province COVID-19 Task Team 

Dr Pearce completed his undergraduate medical studies at the University of the Witwatersrand in 2002 before pursuing an MMed, FCS (SA) in Surgery and a Vascular Fellowship at the UFS. Since 2003, he has been employed at the Universitas Hospital in various capacities and was the Head of the Department of Surgery at the UFS, before heading the COVID-19 Task Team at the Universitas National Hospital in Bloemfontein and sitting on various national and provincial COVID-19 task teams. 

From the onset of the pandemic, Dr Pearce was one of the champions who worked with a team of colleagues to address the COVID-19 needs of the UFS community, Bloemfontein, and the Free State. His leadership and drive during the initial stages of the pandemic, and continuously thereafter, ensured the successful roll-out of treatment plans and the training of staff and students for the comprehensive management programme (vaccination, treatment, screening, etc.) in the Free State.

Dr Pearce was convinced that it was critical to vaccinate not only front-line healthcare workers, but all members of society as well as the university community, to prevent staff members from getting ill and reducing the workforce behind the fight against the virus. He has also been instrumental in finalising clinical environment policies for hand hygiene, personal protective equipment (PPE), patient visits, referrals, and procedures in various clinical environments. Dr Pearce visited all the Free State health institutions to provide expert advice on readiness to accommodate COVID-19 patients, resources and equipment, dedicated wards, and overall plan implementation.

Advisory role to Free State and Northern Cape governments on COVID-19
Dr Nicholas Pearce played a key role in establishing and implementing the Free State vaccination programme.

Dr Pearce played a key role in establishing and implementing the Free State vaccination programme by training staff in PPE use, high care, theatre, and intensive care unit protocols. In addition, he advised the MEC for Health in the Free State on field hospitals and assisted the Northern Cape Province with advice. During a period of high demand and low supply, Dr Pearce ensured the acquisition of masks, sanitiser, gloves, and visors for hospital and faculty staff and students who worked in clinical areas. 

The university recognises and commends his valuable contribution and outstanding service at community, local, and national level. His dedication has optimised the safety of health-care workers as well as the patients they care for.

“Thank you to the university community for this great honour; I feel humbled by receiving such a prestigious acknowledgement. It would be amiss if I did not acknowledge the teams that I have led and the support I received from the University of the Free State, the Faculty of Health Sciences, and the Department of Health in the Free State in my endeavours. With teamwork, so much can be achieved – our endeavours are summed up in the concept of the Batho Pele (People First) approach,” said Dr Pearce.


The Chancellor’s Medal will be presented to Dr Pearce during a graduation ceremony in 2022.

News Archive

Inaugural lecture: Prof. Annette Wilkinson
2008-04-16

A strong plea for a pursuit of “scholarship” in higher education

Prof. Annette Wilkinson of the Centre for Higher Education Studies and Development in the Faculty of the Humanities at the University of the Free State (UFS) made as strong plea for a pursuit of “scholarship” in higher education.

She said in her inaugural lecture that higher education has to deal with changes and demands that necessitate innovative approaches and creative thinking when it concerns effective teaching and learning in a challenging and demanding higher education environment. She referred to a recent research report prepared for the Council for Higher Education (CHE) which spells out the alarming situation regarding attrition rates and graduation output in South African higher education and emphasises factors leading to the situation. These factors include socio-economic conditions and shortcomings in the school and the subsequent under preparedness of a very large proportion of the current student population. However, what is regarded as one of the key factors within the sector’s control is the implementation of strategies for improving graduate output.

She said: “The CHE report expresses concern about academics’ adherence to traditional teaching practices at institutions, which have not changed significantly to make provision for the dramatic increase in diversity since the 1980s.

“Raising the profile of teaching and learning in terms of accountability, recognition and scholarship is essential for successful capacity-building,” she said. “The notion of scholarship, however, brings to the minds of many academics the burden of ‘publish or perish’. In many instances, the pressures to be research-active are draining the value put on teaching. Institutions demand that staff produce research outputs in order to qualify for any of the so-called three Rs – resources, rewards and recognition.

“These have been abundant for research, but scarce when it comes to teaching – with the status of the latter just not on the same level as that of research. From within their demanding teaching environments many lecturers just feel they do not have the time to spend on research because of heavy workloads, that their efforts are under-valued and that they have to strive on the basis of intrinsic rewards.”

She said: “It is an unfortunate situation that educational expertise, in particular on disciplinary level, is not valued, even though in most courses, as in the Programme in Higher Education Studies at the UFS, all applications, whether in assignments, projects or learning material design, are directly applied to the disciplinary context. We work in a challenging environment where the important task of preparing students for tomorrow requires advanced disciplinary together with pedagogical knowledge.”

Prof. Wilkinson argued that a pursuit of the scholarship of teaching and learning holds the potential of not only improving teaching and learning and consequently success rates of students, but also of raising the status of teaching and recognising the immense inputs of lecturers who excel in a very demanding environment. She emphasised that not all teaching staff will progress to the scholarship level or are interested in such an endeavour. She therefore suggested a model in which performance in the area of teaching and learning can be recognised, rewarded and equally valued on three distinct levels, namely the levels of excellence, expertise and scholarship. An important feature of the model is that staff in managerial, administrative and support posts can also be rewarded for their contributions on the different levels for all teaching related work.

Prof. Wilkinson also emphasised the responsibility or rather, accountability, of institutions as a whole, as well as individual staff members, in providing an environment and infrastructure where students can develop to their full potential. She said that in this environment the development of the proficiency of staff members towards the levels of excellence, expertise and scholarship must be regarded as a priority.

“If we want to improve students’ success rates the institution should not be satisfied with the involvement in professional development opportunities by a small minority, but should set it as a requirement for all teaching staff, in particular on entry into the profession and for promotion purposes. An innovative approach towards a system of continuous professional development, valued and sought after, should be considered and built into the institutional performance management system.”

As an example of what can be achieved, Prof. Wilkinson highlighted the work of one of the most successful student support programmes at the UFS, namely the Career Preparation Programme (CPP), implemented fourteen years ago, bringing opportunities to thousands of students without matric exemption. The programme is characterised by dedicated staff, a challenging resource-based approach and foundational courses addressing various forms of under preparedness. Since 1993 3 422 students gained entry into UFS degree programmes after successfully completing the CPP; since 1996 1 014 of these students obtained their degrees, 95 got their honours degrees, 18 their master’s degrees and six successfully completed their studies as medical doctors.

Prof. Wilkinson said: “I believe we have the structures and the potential to become a leading teaching-learning university and region, where excellence, expertise and scholarship are recognised, honoured and rewarded.”

 

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