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The New Face of Student Mental Wellness at the UFS

08 February 2022 | Story Anthony Mthembu | Photo Charl Devenish

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

PhD students’ voices reverberate across Africa and beyond

2014-01-14

Noel Ndumeya, Tinashe Nyamunda, Ivo Mhike and Anusa Daimon
Photo: Hannes Pieterse

The Centre of Africa Studies (CAS) has been recruiting the best young scholars from across the SADC region – with magnificent success. In the span of six months, four PhD students have excelled both on the African continent and abroad.

Anusa Daimon, Noel Ndumeya, Ivo Mhike and Tinashe Nyamunda – the names of these distinguished students. Set against the backdrop of global excellence and competition, they have been awarded several positions at conferences and already published world-wide.

Anusa Daimon’s PhD studies at the CAS focuses on Malawian migrants and their descendants in Southern Africa. It explores issues of identity construction and agency among this group.

Since his arrival at the CAS, Daimon has won two fully-funded awards to attend international conferences and workshops. He was invited to attend the Young African Scholars Conference at Cambridge University in the UK. He also went to Brazil to the IGK Work and Human Lifecycle in Global History Summer Academy. This workshop explored the historical and modern meanings and practices of work in terms of ‘freedom’ and ‘unfreedom’.

Noel Ndumeya holds a special interest in environmental history and the aspects of conservation and conflict. His PhD hones in on land and agrarian studies with specific focus on South Eastern Zimbabwe.

Ndumeya has won an award from the African Studies Association United Kingdom (ASAUK). This earned him an invitation to Nairobi, Kenya, to work with an editor from the Journal of Southern Africa Studies (JSAS).

Ivo Mhike’s research specialises in youth culture and their relationship with the state. In his PhD he uses juvenile delinquency as a window towards an analysis of social constructs of youth behaviour. This includes youth policy and their institutional and administrative links to the state.

Mhike has been invited to attend the CODESRIA Child and Youth Institute in Dakar, Senegal, with the theme: Social Protection and the Citizen Rights of Vulnerable Children in Africa.

Tinashe Nyamunda specialises in African Economic History. His PhD thesis is entitled, “The State and Finance in Rhodesia: A study of the evolution of the monetary system during the Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI), 1965–1979”.

Under the direction of his primary supervisor, Prof Ian Phimister and his secondary supervisor, Dr Andrew Cohen, four of his papers have been accepted for publication. Nyamunda also received sponsorship from the Rector’s Office for an edited book collection of which he is the leading author. The book focuses on the many aspects of Zimbabwe’s blood diamonds.

Recently, Nyamunda has contributed papers at conferences in Botswana and Scotland and attended a workshop at Lund University in Sweden. He has also received an invitation from Germany and Oxford to present some chapters of his PhD thesis.

“The centre has provided the best working environment any PhD student can dream of,” Nyamunda said. He continued to remark that the opportunities Prof Jonathan Jansen has created opened up immense possibilities for them.

“Given these fruitful experiences in just a year at the university,” Nyamunda said,” imagine what can be accomplished given the resources and environment availed by the institution.” The prospects after his PhD studies looks bright, he concluded, because of the opportunities provided by the UFS.

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