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29 March 2022 | Story Teli Mothabeng | Photo Supplied
Philmon Bitso, Student Recruitment Officer, with the top-10 cohort of the class of 2021 Free State Star of Stars.

The Department of Student Recruitment Services at the University of the Free State (UFS) hosted its annual Free State Star of Stars competition at the Amanzi Private Game Reserve during the first week of March.  The event saw some of the brightest young minds in the Free State inducted as UFS first-year students into this year’s top-10 cohort for the competition. This marks the first Star of Stars event since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. 


This new cohort consists of a dynamic group of academically gifted students from Quintile 1-3 schools in the Free State who are currently enrolled for different UFS academic programmes, ranging from Medicine, Law, Education, and various Bachelor of Science courses. Many of these students had to overcome insurmountable challenges to perform as well as they did in their Grade 12 academic year and to become part of the top-10 cohort for the class of 2021. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Department of Student Recruitment Services was forced to take a different approach to celebrate these deserving students; consequently, a weekend-long induction camp was the substitute for the annual gala dinner. 

Apply for the 2022 Free State Star of Stars competition

The UFS realised the need to establish a platform that recognises and celebrates the diverse and, in most instances, difficult circumstances that disadvantaged schools (Quintile 1-3) are facing. Consequently, the Star of Stars competition was developed and established in 2016. This competition provides disadvantaged Grade 12 learners from all districts in the Free State an opportunity to showcase their excellence, while motivating them to aspire to achieve more.

Star of Stars Flyer 2022  aplicayion for the 2022 Free State Star of Stars competition open on 1 April 2022.

News Archive

International speakers unite to discuss diversity
2014-01-20


The Institute of Reconciliation and Social Justice is hosting a two-day colloquium on 30–31 January 2014. A broad range of keynotes will discuss the topic: ‘Diversity and the politics of engaged scholarship: A comparative study in higher education’.

Prof Jonathan Jansen, Vice-Chancellor and Rector, and Prof Dr Halleh Ghorashi from the Netherlands will lead as keynote speakers on the first day.

Prof Dr Ghorashi is a Professor of Diversity and Integration in the Department of Sociology at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. She is the author of ‘Ways to Survive, Battles to Win: Iranian Women Exiles in the Netherlands and the United States’. She has also published extensively on topics such as identity, diasporic positioning, cultural diversity and emancipation.

During the second day, Dr Charles Alexander from Los Angeles and Prof Shirley Tate from Leeds will lead as keynote speakers.

Dr Alexander is Associate Vice-Provost for Student Diversity at the University of California. He has run several programmes for students who have been underserved by higher education, including students from immigrant families and underrepresented populations. In 2011, Dr Alexander received a Champions of Health Professions Diversity Award from The California Wellness Foundation in recognition of his commitment to increasing California’s health care workforce and its diversity.

Prof Shirley Tate’s work focuses, among others, on theorising ‘race’ performativity and the intersection between 'race' and gender. She has written on mixed ‘race’ identities, affect, beauty, embodiment, pain and women in prison, transracial intimacies, gendered prison identities, racial affective economies in organisations, as well as on domestic work and food.

The sessions led by these keynote speakers are open to the public and the Institution welcomes everyone to join in this topical discussion.

Date: Thursday 30 January 2014 and Friday 31 January 2014
Time: 09:00–11:00
Place: Centenary Hall
RSVP: vannestel@ufs.ac.za 

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