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16 May 2022 | Story Dr Nitha Ramnath

 

 

 

As a public higher-education institution in South Africa with a responsibility to contribute to public discourse, the University of the Free State (UFS) will be presenting the webinar in collaboration with News24 and the Free State Literature Festival.  The aim of the webinar series is to discuss issues facing South Africa by engaging experts at the university and in South Africa.

Some of the topics discussed by leading experts in 2021 included, among others, reimagining universities for student success; corruption in South Africa – the endemic pandemic; South African politics and the local government elections; is South Africa falling apart: where to from here; predications for 2022; and why vaccinate?

First webinar presented on 31 May 2022
There is a perception that the presence of migrants in South Africa is compromising job opportunities and is the source of crime and inadequate service delivery, among other things. People are being stopped on the street by private citizens and forced to produce identification to verify their immigration status. Some political leaders are exploiting people’s grievances for political gain and are making unfounded pronouncements about immigrants. Businesses of migrants are being looted, burned, and destroyed. People’s homes are being invaded and raided for evidence of criminal activity. Frequent attacks are being levelled and people are even killed because of how they look and because of their accent.

Is the focus and targeting of foreigners merely a smokescreen for government’s failures?
These are some of the aspects we look forward to discussing in the forthcoming webinar.

Date: Tuesday, 31 May 2022
Topic: Crime in South Africa – who is to blame?
Time: 12:30-14:00
RSVP: Alicia Pienaar, pienaaran1@ufs.ac.za by 29 May 2022

Facilitator:

Prof Francis Petersen
Rector and Vice-Chancellor, UFS

Panellists:

Adriaan Basson
Editor-in-Chief
News24

Gareth Newham
Head of the Justice and Violence Prevention Programme
The Institute for Security Studies

Prof Joy Owen
Head of Department: Anthropology
Faculty of the Humanities, UFS

Judge at the High Court of Cape Town and Judge President of the Competition Appeal Court 


Bios of speakers:

Adriaan Basson

Adriaan Basson is the editor-in-chief of News24, South Africa's biggest website. Before that, he edited Netwerk24 and the daily newspaper Beeld. He is a recipient of the CNN African Journalist of the Year award for news, the Standard Bank Sikuvile Journalist of the Year award, and the Taco Kuiper award for investigative journalism. He has reported for Beeld, the Mail & Guardian, and City Press. In 2010, he co-founded the M&G Centre for Investigative Journalism, nicknamed amaBhungane. Basson has authored four non-fiction books, the latest being Blessed by Bosasa: Inside Gavin Watson’s State Capture Cult (Jonathan Ball Publishers).

Prof Joy Owen

Prof Joy Owen is an academic, mother, and Head of the Department of Anthropology at the University of the Free State. The former head of department and deputy dean (Humanities) at Rhodes University, Prof Owen spent some time as a visiting lecturer at the University of Münster (Germany) in 2016, and as a TORCH Global South visiting professor at the University of Oxford (UK) in 2019.

Prof Owen’s primary research love is African transnational migration. Her monograph, titled Congolese social networks: Living on the margins in Muizenberg, Cape Town, detailed the lives of transnational Congolese migrants residing in Muizenberg in the first decade of the twenty-first century. Her work homes in on the complex ways in which African transnational migrants create and maintain belonging in post-apartheid South Africa. Focusing particularly on social networks, Prof Owen demonstrates how contingency, strategy, love, and habitus support onward migration (or not).

A second research flirtation is embodied in critical pedagogy that recognises students as knowledge holders and producers through their experiences prior to and during higher education. Students are critical teaching and learning collaborators in classroom spaces, however defined. As an invisible pioneer, ‘Just Joy’ – as described by one of the students she supervises – merges both head and heart in her teaching, as she encourages students to become critically conscious of the world they have inherited and are creating, and the ways in which all forms of oppression can and need to be collectively addressed.

Prof Owen’s work, including her research, teaching, and administrative work, unobtrusively pulls apart academic and social binaries, making the world safer for the appreciation and celebration of difference – the primary marker of humanity.

Gareth Newham

Gareth Newham has spent the past 26 years working to promote public safety and justice in South Africa. In January 2010, he joined the Institute for Security Studies (ISS), which is an independent Pan-African organisation that undertakes policy research, technical support, and capacity building to enhance human security across Africa.

Newham currently heads the Justice and Violence Programme, which consists of a team of people working to inform government policy and practice, and to promote public awareness on effective responses to preventing and reducing violence, crime, and corruption, and improving the performance of the criminal justice system in South Africa.

He regularly publishes both nationally and internationally, and regularly briefs various government departments, parliamentary committees, civil society organisations, the private sector, international audiences, and the media on his areas of work. From 2016 and 2018, he served on the independent ‘Panel of Experts on Policing and Crowd Management,’ appointed by the Cabinet. More recently, he was a contributing author to an internationally published book, titled ‘Police Integrity in South Africa.’

Prior to joining the ISS, Newham held the positions of Strategic Adviser and Special Projects Manager to the Gauteng Provincial Minister (MEC) for Community Safety (2006-2009). He also served as Project Manager in the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation (1999-2005), and Project Manager in the Institute for Democracy in South Africa (1995-1998).

Justice Dennis Davis

Judge Dennis Davis, who retired from the bench in December 2020, was educated at the Herzlia School and the Universities of Cape Town and Cambridge. He served as judge of the High Court of Cape Town (since 1998) and Judge President of the Competition Appeal Court (since February 2000). He is honorary professor at the Universities of Cape Town, the Western Cape, Wits and is an extraordinary professor in the University of the Free State Centre for Human Rights. He is also Chair of the Davis Tax Committee and was one of the drafters of the Competition Act 1998 and the Companies Act 2008. He authored 11 books and held visiting professorial posts at the universities of Toronto, Melbourne, Harvard, Florida Brown, Georgetown and New York University. Judge Davis received an honorary doctorate from the University of the Free State in April 2022.

 


News Archive

Official opening ceremony of the UFS Qwaqwa Campus
2006-02-15

Official opening ceremony of the UFS Qwaqwa Campus
11th February 2006 – Multipurpose Hall

Opening Speech:
Prof. Peter A. Mbati
Campus Principal

Successfully rising to the challenges of incorporations and mergers – developing a vibrant and academically stimulating satellite campus of the University of the Free State.

Thank you Mr. Program Director and good morning ladies and gentlemen.

I wish to once again welcome all of you to the official opening ceremony of the University of the Free State QQ campus.  Thank you for taking time to share with us an important date in our campus academic calendar.  I bring you greetings from our Rector and Vice Chancellor Prof. Frederick Fourie.

During such occasions we try and reflect on important matters that have affected us as an institution in the preceding year, commit ourselves to specific objectives for the current year, while planning for the proceeding year.

Today I shall be talking on Successfully rising to the challenges of incorporations and mergers – developing a vibrant and academically stimulating satellite campus of the University of the Free State’.

SRC inauguration
I would like to congratulate the SRC President and the entire SRC leadership for being elected into important positions of student leadership and authority. 

As a university we are proud of the quality of our student leadership on the Qwaqwa campus.  I am confident that you young leaders will rise to the challenges of your office and discharge your duties with diligence and without fear or favour.  That you will rise above your party affiliations and provide effective leadership to the entire student body on campus.
                              
Leadership is complex and requires you to be objective, just and fair in your approach to the many challenges that you will encounter.  You will be judged not by the populist decision that you take when confronted with difficult choices, but rather, on the wisdom that you exercise in reaching consensus in decision making processes.

The era when management and student leadership viewed each other with suspicion and as adversaries is long gone.  Management, academic and administrative staff, parents and students must have common agendas in as far the  quality growth and development of our university is concerned and to strive towards academic excellence.  I leave the challenge to you students, and more so to the inaugurated student leaders to define your agenda in achieving this noble objective.  I trust that you will make the right choices.

Brief history of incorporation
On the recommendations of the National Working Group of Higher Education, the Qwaqwa Campus of the then University of the North was incorporated into the University of the Free State on 1st January 2003.  We suddenly had to move from a campus that was originally semi-autonomous and with its own culture developed over almost 20 years, into a campus that had to operate as a fully integrated campus of the UFS, a 100 year old institution with its distinct culture.

Following incorporation, we not only had to continue with our core business of teaching, learning, research and community service, but we also had to engage in other important aspects such as exploring the most appropriate models of governance for the campus, encouraging dialogue and interactions at all levels between personnel at the different campuses with a view to developing trust between colleagues. And with the added dimensions such as participation in the transformation task team we in effect are at the fore front of developing a new institutional culture at the UFS and a truly South African University.

UFS Strategic objectives
The strategic and transformation priorities of the University of the Free State for 2006 – 2008 as approved by the Executive Management at its retreat in January 2006 are:

  • Quality and Excellence
  • Equity, diversity and redress
  • Financial sustainability
  • Regional co-operation and engagement

Central to this priority is the integration of the Qwaqwa campus as a valuable constituent part of the UFS, and the strategic reconfiguration of the campus in order that the UFS can play a meaningful role in regional engagement and development.

  • National leadership

The five strategic objectives cannot be viewed in isolation and run simultaneously and in concert with each other. 

The Question must therefore be what we on the QQ campus, staff and students, parents and our broader community are willing to do to achieve these strategic objectives. The reconfiguration and strategic planning of this campus, and therefore its success, must be a collaborative effort between colleagues at QQ and on the main campus.  We must all be ready to work together, to plan together, to shoulder responsibilities together and sometimes, to share the pain and disappointments together. 

The second question must therefore be: are we prepared to go that extra mile for our campus to ensure that we claim our rightful stake within the ranks of well respected academic institutions of higher learning in this country?  At this point in its history this campus requires committed men and women from across the cultural spectrum who appreciate the challenges ahead of us and who are ready to give of their best and to constructively engage at all levels to make this dream a reality.  Because this dream is possible and this dream will be realized!

Quality and Excellence (1st strategic objective)

As mentioned by the Rector in his speech at the official opening ceremony of the university on the main campus on Friday 3rd February, the university will in 2006 pay extra attention to Quality and Excellence.  This is informed by the Higher Education Quality Committee’s (HEQC) institutional audit which is scheduled to take place this year.  Our university as well as several other HEI’s will be subjected to this audit.  This will call for a lot of hard work on your part in preparation for a successful audit and in this regard therefore I request for your cooperation.

As a further step in confirming our commitment to quality and excellence, we have simultaneously introduced on the QQ campus and the main campus workshops on performance management systems to a cohort group.  This will be expanded in 2006 to a wider group of managers on the QQ campus to include among others all Program Heads and Subject Heads. PMS is an invaluable tool for fair, effective and efficient management of a very important resource on campus – the human resource.  Benefits of PMS include among others:

  • Instilling and enriching a culture of performance management (quality assurance) as an integral part of the day to day functioning of staff at the campus
  • Improving staff performance through mentoring, development and training

Tri campus project
One of the more important projects that we as a university undertook in 2005 was the Tri Campus Project which was coordinated by the Free State Higher Education Consortium (FSHEC) through Niel Butcher and Associates consultants.

The Tri-Campus project focused on the strategic planning for higher education campuses in the Free State that have been incorporated with UFS and CUT during the reshaping of the South African higher education landscape. The Bloemfontein Vista campus and the Qwaqwa campus of the University of the North were incorporated with the UFS, and the Welkom Vista campus with the CUT.

The planning process involved a range of research and consultation activities during the course of 2005. This included:

  • Conducting situational analyses of the Qwaqwa campus during which staff and students were widely consulted;
  • Consulting with the campus and with a range of stakeholders in the sub-region
  • Review of the Free State Provincial Growth and Development Strategy and Integrated Development Plans (IDPs) of the regions and other research of relevance to the sub-regions, province and country.

An operational framework for the reconfiguration of the campus with a range of possible Program Qualification Mixes has been produced.  In December 2005, the Rector, the Vice Rector Academic Planning Prof. Magda Fourie and I discussed this document with senior members of the DoE in Pretoria, and we will soon be meeting with the National Minister of Education Me Naledi Pandor for her guidance and to seek support in the further refinement of the document and subsequent implementation.

Recapitalization
This year a further R 6 M has been budgeted for recapitalization.  In about two weeks time the third of phase of renovations on campus will commence and attention will be given to the administration building, the humanities and the outstanding work in the lecture hall complex.  There- after the library, sciences and education buildings will follow.  As you will recall a substantial portion of the R 8.4 million in 2005 was used to upgrade the student residences and the lecture hall complex.

I am certain that the renovations and upgrading of our infrastructure and physical facilities including landscaping will create an enabling environment for you to enjoy your work and studies on this campus.

Renovations come with some measure of inconveniences and I therefore wish to request for your patience and support during this period.

Closing remarks
There is a heightened spirit of optimism on what the future holds for this campus.  This is evident when I talk to a large cross section of staff and students of this campus – and I therefore invite all of you to come and be partners with us on this journey of optimism and hope of what the future holds for the UFS – QQ campus.

Thank you and God bless!

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