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28 November 2022 | Story Rulanzen Martin | Photo Anja Aucamp
Prof Melanie Walker
Prof Melanie Walker is one of two NRF A1-rated scholars at the UFS.

The Higher Education and Human Development (HEHD) research group under the leadership of Prof Melanie Walker has grown to become a pocket of academic excellence and innovation at the UFS. “The group’s research positions universities (if ‘reimagined’) as potentially powerful sites for achieving human development by challenging the status quo and entrenched interests and inequalities,” Prof Walker notes. 

HEHD researchers draw substantially on the capability approach, which offers a contribution to higher education in South Africa, primarily because it derives from a normative framework that places human flourishing as its primary goal, chiming with the country’s transformation goals.

Prof Walker is an internationally acclaimed researcher and academic and one of three A-rated National Research Foundation (NRF) scholars at the UFS. In 2021, she was elected as the first president of the international Human Development and Capability Association (HDCA) from the Global South. Back then, Prof Walker said the UFS already had a strong research presence within the HDCA, and her group was known for its work in African higher education. The HDCA brings together academics who generate ideas and research on human development.

The research group, which was founded by Prof Walker, is an embodiment of the quality and of the impact elements of the institutional narrative of the UFS. The HEHD is now happily based in the Centre for Development Support within the UFS Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences.

Top-tier research outputs from HEHD

The outputs of the HEHD research group have a far-reaching impact, given the nature of its national and international affiliated researchers, students, and collaborators. Members of the group have published 19 peer-reviewed books since 2013, and since 2016, the HEHD has graduated 20 PhDs whose research focuses on diverse aspects of higher education and capabilities across the sub- Saharan region. A range of international examiners in the USA, the UK and Europe attest to the quality of the HEHD’s doctoral graduates.

“I am immensely proud of the quality of the research and collective ethos of our graduate students and our researchers and, as importantly, the substantive focus on human development and social justice in and through higher education in Africa,” Prof Walker says. “As Professor Tristan McCowan and others have noted, this group is quite unique internationally,” she continues.

Projects and research collaborations

The numerous institutional and national and international research collaborations are also testament to the interdisciplinarity of Prof Walker’s academic approach. Various recent and current projects attest to this, for example, the recently completed Miratho project on inclusive higher education learning outcomes for low-income rural youth with Birmingham and Nottingham.

Some of the the book titles that have been published by HEHD members past and present, on display on the wall in the Benito Khotseng Building on the Bloemfontein Campus. (Photo: Anja Aucamp) 


A further current example is the project under the Transforming Education for Sustainable Futures (TESF) with Bristol and Rhodes led by Dr Mikateko Mathebula, and a new edited book underway with Alejandra Boni and Diana Velasco (Spain) on higher education and reparative futures.

 
Furthermore, national collaborations such as the project with colleagues in the Centre for Development Support at the UFS and the University of Pretoria, which will be investigating the sustainable (ecologically and socially), developmental South African university and justice facing university futures from a variety of stakeholder 
perspectives.

This research project is informed by the 17 Sustainable Development Goals, because achieving them cannot be done without the contributions of higher education institutions.

It is thus evident that under the leadership of Prof Walker, the HEHD research group is now established as one of the finest research groups at the UFS and contributes actively to the research and academic excellence at the university.

News Archive

UFS forms a strategic partnership with Yale University
2010-03-16

 
At the official inauguration of the Jonathan Edwards Center Africa was, from the left, front: Prof. Harry Stout, Chair of the Department of American Religious History at Yale University; Prof. Jonathan Jansen, Rector and Vice-Chancellor of the UFS; back: Prof. Dolf Britz, Director of the Jonathan Edwards Center Africa at the UFS; Prof. Kenneth Minkema, Executive Director of the Jonathan Edwards Center at Yale University; Prof. Adriaan Neele of Yale University, now also Professor Extraordinary in the Faculty of Theology at the UFS; and Prof. Francois Tolmie, Dean of the Faculty of Theology at the UFS.
Photo: Stephen Collett


The University of the Free State (UFS) officially inaugurated the Jonathan Edwards Centre Africa in its Faculty of Theology last week. This centre, affiliated with the Jonathan Edwards Centre Yale University in New Haven in the United States of America, was established at the UFS last year.

The strategic partnership between the UFS and Yale University exemplifies the vision of the Faculty of Theology to be an internationally renowned theological and training faculty.

Leading scholars from Yale University, Prof. Harry Stout, Chair of the Department of American Religious History, and Prof. Kenneth Minkema, Executive Director of the Jonathan Edwards Center at Yale participated in the inauguration of the Jonathan Edwards Center Africa.

The Dean of the Faculty of Theology, Prof. Francois Tolmie said, “This visit underscores the strategic relationship between Yale University and the Faculty of Theology and will assist in us continuing to foster high aspiring scholarship, student and faculty support.”

This is an exciting development between universities renowned for excellence in learning, and innovation in scholarship. Prof. Minkema added, “The establishment of this renowned center for research, education and publication, at the UFS is a significant expansion of Edwards scholarship and will serve widely both academia and the church,” Said Prof. Stout.

The Faculty of Theology also announced the appointment of Prof. Adriaan Neele of Yale University as Professor Extraordinary. The appointment follows the vast growth of the Jonathan Edwards Centre Africa. “I welcome this appointment with much anticipation as the strategic relationship between Yale University and the Faculty of Theology develops in unprecedented ways, attracting doctoral students from Southern Africa, South Korea and America,” said Prof. Tolmie.

Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758), pastor, revivalist, Christian philosopher, missionary, and president of Princeton University, is widely regarded as North America’s greatest theologian. He is the subject of intense scholarly interest throughout the world, because of his significance as a historical figure and the profound legacy he left on America’s religious, political and intellectual landscapes.

“The centre and appointment of Prof. Neele will provide sustainable scholarship of primary sources in new and promising ways, said Prof. Dolf Britz, Director of the Jonathan Edwards Africa at the UFS.

“My appointment at this prestige university of Southern Africa is both an honour and humbling. I look forward to a beneficial and academic engagement with students, as well as to serve the academy and the church,” said Prof. Neele.

Prof. Neele’s inaugural address entitled A Transitional Moment in Theology argued for the classicality and catholicity of Edwards’ theology.

The interest in Edwards globally has in part been fuelled by the work of the Jonathan Edwards Centre at Yale University, whose sole mission is to support inquiry into the life, writings, and legacy of Jonathan Edwards by providing resources that encourage critical appraisal of the historical importance and contemporary relevance of America’s premier theologian.

The primary means to achieve this are with the Works of Jonathan Edwards Online, a digital learning environment for research, education and publication that presents all of Edwards’s writings, along with helpful editorial materials that allow the reader to examine Edwards's thought in incredibly powerful, useful ways.

Media Release
Issued by: Lacea Loader
Director: Strategic Communication (actg)
Tel: 051 401 2584
Cell: 083 645 2454
E-mail: loaderl@ufs.ac.za  
15 March 2010
 

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