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08 February 2022 | Story Anthony Mthembu | Photo Charl Devenish
Dr Munita Dunn-Coetzee
“I would like for students to walk in here and feel comfortable; it doesn’t matter what you identify as – there is a space for you here,” says Dr Munita Dunn-Coetzee, the new Director of Student Counselling and Development.

Dr Munita Dunn-Coetzee has joined the University of the Free State as the new Director of Student Counselling and Development. This is after an eleven-year stay at Stellenbosch University as the Deputy Director of the Centre for Student Structures and Communities, and later as the Director of the Centre for Student Counselling and Development.

Dr Dunn-Coetzee’s role at the UFS

As leader of the department, Dr Dunn-Coetzee sees her role as one in which she is responsible for moving her team forward. “My role is to really look at what the team needs. This is from infrastructure right through to their own personal development, and to making sure that they have what they need to get their jobs done,” she stated. In addition, Dr Dunn-Coetzee’s responsibilities include, “looking at our strategic intent, aligning with what the university wants, being relevant in terms of our service delivery, and connecting enough with the students”. In fact, one of the things she is excited about is learning from the students at the University of the Free State. “The big thing for me is to make contact with students and to engage with them about what is going on at ground level; the one thing I don’t want to be is someone who sits in the office, sends emails, and think I know what’s going on,” she explained.

A commitment to the mental health of UFS students

Although her two predecessors were internal appointments, Dr Dunn-Coetzee argues that being an external appointment allows her to have a fresh perspective. As such, one of her main priorities for the year is looking at student leaders, day residences, residences on campus, and residential heads, and analysing whether they are empowered enough to have conversations about mental-health issues with students. “The one thing that concerns me is that we have been online for two years, and now that we are telling students to come back to campus, it might evoke a level of anxiety in some students,” she explained. Therefore, ensuring that the department is student-centred in everything it does is very important to Dr Dunn-Coetzee. This varies from the way in which students are dealt with, how emails are responded to, and how students are treated when they walk into the Kovsie Health Building.

A long-term vision for the department and the university

Even though she has not been at the University of the Free State for very long, Dr Dunn-Coetzee has some long-term goals that are bound to positively impact both the students and the staff in her department. “I would like to have a research focus within our department; it is very easy to say that we are doing good work and that we have an impact on our students, but we need to have something that proves it,” she said. Therefore, an evidence-based approach is one of the directions she would like to pursue in her department. In addition, Dr Dunn-Coetzee argues that there is a need for a space in which intern psychologists can be trained. “It keeps your current staff on their toes, and it helps you to really play a role in developing psychologists in South Africa,” she expressed. Therefore, opening this space for young psychologists is something she hopes to make a reality in her time at the university. Furthermore, developing her staff and ensuring that they grow their skill set is an important goal she would like to achieve. “My focus is not to have people work here for thirty years; I need to empower them so that they can develop as much as they can. Of course, I love having them here, but in the event that they want to work somewhere else I need to make sure that they are skilled,” she said. Lastly, a goal she is adamant to achieve is to ensure that the service delivery by Student Counselling and Development is of a high standard on all three campuses.

As such, Dr Dunn-Coetzee would like to be viewed by the student community as accessible and approachable. “I would like for students to walk in here and feel comfortable; it doesn’t matter what you identify as – there is a space for you here,” she said.

News Archive

Chemistry gets substantial grants
2013-06-10

 

At the experimental setup of the high temperature reduction oven for research in heterogeneous catalysis are, front from left: Maretha Serdyn (MNS Cluster prestige PhD bursar), Nceba Magqi (Sasol employee busy with his MSc in Chemistry) and Dr Alice Brink (Formal MNS Cluster postdoctoral fellow and lecturer in Inorganic Chemistry); back Profs Jannie Swarts (Head: Physical Chemistry), André Roodt, and Ben Bezuidenhoudt (Sasol Professor in Organic and Process Chemistry).
10 June 2013

Three research groups in the Department of Chemistry received substantial grants to the value of R4,55 million. The funding includes bursaries for students and post-doctoral fellows, mobility grants, running costs and equipment support, as well as dedicated funds for two young scientists in the UFS Prestige Scholar Programme, Drs Lizette Erasmus and Alice Brink.

The funding comes from Sasol, the THRIP programme of the National Research Foundation (NRF) and PetLabs Pharmaceuticals for the overarching thrust in Organic Synthesis, Homogeneous and Heterogeneous Catalysis. The programme has a broad focuse on different fundamental and applied aspects of process chemistry. Research groups of Profs Andreas Roodt (Inorganic), Jannie Swarts (Physical) and Ben Bezuidenhoudt (Organic / Process), principal members of the focus area of (Green) Petrochemicals in the Materials and Nanosciences Strategic Research Cluster (MNS Cluster) will benefit from the grant.

This funding was granted based on the continued and high-level outputs by the groups, which resulted in more than 40 papers featuring in international chemistry publications in merely the past year. A few papers also appeared in the top experimental inorganic chemistry journal from the American Chemical Society, Inorganic Chemistry. These high-impact papers address important issues in catalysis under the UFS Material and Nanosciences Research Cluster initiative, as well as other aspects of fundamental chemistry, but with an applied approach and focus.

Prof Andreas Roodt, Distinguished Professor and Chairperson of the Department of Chemistry, said the grants will enable the three research groups to move forward in their respective research areas associated with petrochemicals and other projects, and enable additional students in the department to benefit from it. It will also ensure that these groups can continue and maintain their research on different molecular and nano-scale materials. Current experiments include conversions under extremely high gas pressures (typical 100 times that in motor car tyres). This takes place at the molecular level and at preselected nano-surfaces, to convert cheaper feed-stream starting materials into higher value-added products for use as special additives in gasoline and other speciality chemicals.

The funding support forms part of the Hub-and-Spoke initiative at Sasol under which certain universities and specifically the UFS Department of Chemistry have been identified for strategic support for research and development. The department and the UFS gratefully acknowledge this continued and generous support from all parties concerned.

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