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Alumna Antjie Krog keynote speaker at UFS conference

22 November 2022 | Story Gerda-Marié van Rooyen

Antjie Krog at UFS — The award-winning writer, Antjie Krog, will be the keynote speaker at the International Hybrid Conference from 24 to 26 November 2022. This conference is a joint venture of the University of the Free State (UFS) Centre for Gender and Africa Studies and the War Museum.

The award-winning writer, Antjie Krog, will be the keynote speaker later this week at an International Hybrid Conference titled, The Unsung Heroines and Youth of South Africa: Violent Histories and Experiences of South African Women and Children during Wars, Conflicts and Pandemics. This conference – a joint project of the Centre for Gender and Africa Studies at the University of the Free State (UFS) and the War Museum – starts on Thursday 24 November and will be hosted at the War Museum in Bloemfontein and broadcast online. The three-day conference overlaps with the global 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence and aims to assemble historians, academics, and other scholars researching the violent histories of not only women and children in the South African War but in other wars, conflicts, and pandemics as well.

Prof Krog, an Extraordinary Professor in the Faculty of Arts at the University of the Western Cape, poet, and author of Country of my Skull (among other books), is an alumna of the UFS, where she completed a BA degree with Afrikaans, Philosophy, and English. She will deliver her keynote address, Survival, Complicity, and Race: (Im)possibilities of Narrating and Interpreting Rape in Havenga Affidavits, on the first day of the conference.

Prof Heidi Hudson, Dean of the Faculty of the Humanities at the UFS, will deliver her keynote address on Friday (25 November 2022). Prof Hudson is considered a specialist in feminist security studies. Her keynote address is titled Disciplinary and other stories: From women’s peace movements to the Women, Peace and Security ecosystem.

Several historians, academics, and scholars will either present their research or attend the conference. The conference aims to gather various stakeholders who are researching the violent histories of not only the women and children in the South African War, but other wars, conflicts, and pandemics in South African history dating from precolonial times to the World Wars, Apartheid, to the present. Each of the eight sessions over the first two days will conclude with time set aside for discussion.

The conference programme includes a visit to the art exhibition Unsung Heroes at the Oliewenhuis Art Museum on Friday after the last session. On Saturday, conference attendees can look forward to a tour of Bloemfontein. Click here for more information or send an email to vicky@anglo-boer.co.za.

News Archive

Business School in top ranks of survey

2012-02-15

UFS Business School
Photo: Liezl Muller

The UFS Business School was ranked amongst the top business schools in South Africa in a survey by Finweek and MBAConnect.net. MBAConnect.net is the biggest social network for MBA graduates in South Africa.

More than 10 000 MBA graduates and students were invited to take part in the survey and 1 575 of them completed it. More than half of the respondents are in senior or executive positions.

Prof. Helena van Zyl, the Director of the UFS Business School, says any business school has a moral obligation towards its alumni to ensure that the quality of the qualification that they obtained is maintained, that network opportunities are created for graduates, and that job opportunities are communicated, etc. Investment in and involvement with the alumni are non-negotiable as they form the backbone of a business school.

The UFS Business School’s results are listed below. The respondents rated the school as the school with the highest:

percentage of respondents saying they had definitely made the right choice in doing an MBA: second with 92% (average 86%)
score in leadership effectiveness: third with 8.9 (average 8.7)
decision-making effectiveness: shares first place with 9.4 (average 9.1)
credibility in business: second with 8.9 (average 8.6)
impact of an MBA in changing industries: third with 8.3 (average 7.9)
score for influence of an MBA in starting your own business: second with 8.5 (average 6.9)
percentage of respondents saying an MBA was definitely worth the price paid: shares first place with 80% (average 72%)
score for changing the outlook of students: shares first place with 9.3 (average 8.9)
score for improving people’s views of their own potential: shares first place with 9.5 (average 9.1)
score for helping people become better leaders in their personal lives: shares third place with 8.3 (average 7.8).

The UFS Business School shared first place with its alumni averaging the shortest payback period amongst those who thought the MBA was worth it. Its score was 1.1 years (average 1.8 years)

The report says across all schools, at least 73% of students report a negative impact on their stress levels. In the worst case, this goes up to 94%. The impact on the UFS’s students was the lowest at 18%. The average was 81%. At least a quarter of students in all schools report a negative impact on their health, and it goes up to 47% in the worst case. The UFS got 0 (nil) in the category for serious impact.

Alumni of the UFS Business School were very satisfied with the school. These results are as follows:

Helps keep business knowledge up to date: third (6.5)
Provides networking opportunities: first (7.3)
Informs about business events: second (8.9)
Communicates regularly: first (9.2)
Helps access MBA-level jobs: second (6.2)
Helps build personal brand: first (5.2)
Helps start or grow business: first (5.2)

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