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Environmental Management gives postgraduates an international experience

02 February 2022 | Story Leonie Bolleurs | Photo Leonie Bolleurs

Summer school web read more — Chané Enslin, master’s student in the UFS Centre for Environmental Management (CEM); Stephanie Graumnitz, Institute of Hydrobiology at the Technical University Dresden (TUD); Dr Dirk Jungmann, Head of Ecotoxicology and Biomonitoring in the Institute of Hydrobiology at TUD; Sihle Mlonyeni, master’s student in the Faculty of Applied Science at the Cape Peninsula Technical University; Dr Marinda Avenant, Senior Lecturer in the CEM at the UFS; Akani Baloyi, master’s student in the UFS Disaster Management Training and Education Centre for Africa; and Sphindile Dlamini, master’s student in the Department of Zoology and Entomology on the UFS Qwaqwa Campus.

The Centre for Environmental Management (CEM) at the University of the Free State (UFS), in collaboration with Dr Dirk Jungmann from the Technical University Dresden, recently presented a virtual summer school on Blackboard, titled: Monitoring of surface water quality: General framework, tools and implementing disaster management aspects in urban areas.

The international group of 30 persons who attended the summer school mostly comprised postgraduate students and employees from, among others, the UFS and other tertiary institutions such as the Technical University Dresden (TUD), the Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT), UNISA, the University of the Western Cape, Stellenbosch University, the University of Lesotho, and the University of Zimbabwe. Members of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research also attended the summer school.

Experts present

Dr Marinda Avenant, Senior Lecturer in the CEM, believes the summer school provides students with a wonderful opportunity to be exposed to a topic, such as aquatic biomonitoring, over and above their normal postgraduate studies. “The presenters are all experts in their field and come from a range of disciplines (from hydrology and chemistry to the social aspects of water), as well as from different countries and perspectives,” she adds.

Some interesting topics covered during the summer school included a panel discussion on water management challenges in Southern Africa. Head of CEM, Prof Paul Oberholser, participated in this live discourse. In 2021, he won the NSTF-Water Research Commission (WRC) Award for his contribution to water resource management in SA over the past five years.

Also contributing a perspective on surface water quality was affiliated professor in CEM, Prof Anthony Turton, who delivered the keynote address on Managing surface water quality as an element of disaster management in urban areas.

Dr Alice Ncube from the UFS Disaster Management Training and Education Centre (DiMTEC) presented on women and disasters (including a case study on a stokvel in Botshabelo), and Dr Inga Jacobs-Mata from the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) provided a social perspective on the water resources sector.

Students excel

Five master’s students representing the UFS, the Technical University Dresden (TUD), as well as the Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT), assisted with the organisation of the summer school. The Volkswagen Foundation in Germany, which funded a first summer school in 2019, provided funding that was used to appoint the five students.

According to Dr Avenant, they made provision for the appointment of these students in their project proposal to the Volkswagen Foundation. “The students played a key role in the planning of the virtual summer school; they specially came up with ideas to make the virtual sessions more interesting,” she says.

Among others, they managed the technical aspects of the sessions, introduced the speakers, arranged social activities for the virtual platform, and they produced podcasts. The podcasts of the speakers were distributed to the participants over the extent of two months, in order to learn more about the presenters.

“We were really impressed with the work of the students, who are all from the natural sciences,” says Dr Avenant.

News Archive

Bloemfontein Campus hosts annual HELTASA conference

2014-12-09

From the left are: Prof Francois Strydom, Director: Academic - Centre for Teaching and Learning, UFS; Dr Lis Lange, Vice-Rector: Academic, UFS; and Prof George Kuh, Adjunct Research Professor of Education Policy at the University of Illinois.

This year, the privilege to host the annual Higher Education Learning and Teaching Association of Southern Africa (HELTASA) conference was afforded to our university. The event took place on the Bloemfontein Campus from 18 – 21 November 2014, attracting keynote speakers and members from across the world.

HELTASA is a professional association mainly for educators and significant role players in higher education institutions. With its inception in the early 2000s, it has grown to become the premier organisation for teaching and learning in Southern Africa, Dr Amanda Hlengwa, President of HELTASA, pointed out.

A central concern of this body is issues around success within the tertiary sector. The theme of this year, ‘Accessing success: using evidence for change’ served to focus members’ attention on what works and what does not work – as derived from researched evidence.

In a message from Prof Jonathan Jansen, Vice-Chancellor and Rector of the University of the Free State (UFS), he stressed that the task as university teachers “is not simply cognitive gains that ensure graduation success but also intellectual gains that ensure success in life during and after university studies.”

The conference was led by internationally-acclaimed keynote speakers, namely Prof George Kuh, Prof William Grabe and Prof Fredricka Stoller, as well as our own A1 NRF-rated Prof Malanie Walker.

Prof Kuh is Adjunct Research Professor of Education Policy at the University of Illinois and Chancellor’s Professor of Higher Education Emeritus at Indiana University. In his keynote address, Prof Kuh offered valuable lessons from the field to promote student success.

Profs Grabe and Stoller collectively presented the second keynote address that explored how to set up students for success through strategic-reader training. Prof Grabe is Regents’ Professor of Applied Linguistics and Vice President for Research at Northern Arizona University. Prof Stoller is a Professor of English at Northern Arizona University, where she teaches in the MA-TESL and PhD in Applied Linguistics programmes.

Prof Walker is a Senior Research Professor at the UFS Centre for Research on Higher Education and Development (CRHED). She is also currently Director of Research Training and a senior researcher in the EU-funded Marie Curie EDUWEL project. In her keynote address, Prof Walker looked at well-being and agency in higher education.

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