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Emerging Adults in Search of Self

26 September 2022 | Story Michelle Nöthling | Photo Stephen Collett

Prof Luzelle Naude — Prof Luzelle Naudé, Professor in the Department of Psychology, delivered her inaugural lecture on the topic: In Search of Self: Emerging Adults as Actors, Agents and Authors.

How do people endeavour to answer the question: Who am I? This is the central question that Prof Luzelle Naudé – professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of the Free State (UFS), has built her academic career on. Under the title of her inaugural lecture, In Search of Self: Emerging Adults as Actors, Agents and Authors, delivered on14 September 2022, Prof Naudé traced the arc of her academic career over the past three decades.

Development as a Scholar

Prof Naudé started by giving an overview of her research as an early scholar, investigating students’ learning experiences and predictors of student success, followed by an exploration of the adolescence stage within the context of South Africa. Prof Naudé’s research interest then led her to investigating the third decade of life: emerging adulthood.

Interestingly, from the turn of the century, the group of 18- to 25-year-olds take longer to transition into adulthood. This group finds themselves in an in-between space, “not being an adolescent anymore, but definitely not being an adult either,” Prof Naudé explained. This has sparked an interesting scholarly debate: is emerging adulthood indeed a new developmental stage, or is it something only applicable to a minority of Western, affluent middle-class, university students? The answer is the former. There are actually many emerging adulthoods – also among our South African youth.

Current Research Focus

Currently, Prof Naudé is interested in the narratives of emerging adults at the intersection of self and society. The self, she pointed out, unfolds through different layers, namely the actor, the agent, and the author. “Our South African emerging adults are acting in an increasingly complex and transitioning social world. As agents, they advance through this complexity by telling redemptive stories of generativity, upward mobility, and of liberation. And as authors, they reconstruct their past, present, and future into a coherent life story and a narrative identity,” Prof Naudé said.

Naude Inaugural From the left; Dr Edwin du Plessis, Head of Department of Psychology; Prof Heidi Hudson, Dean of the Faculty of The Humanities; Prof Luzelle Naudé , and Prof Corli Witthuhn, Vice-Rector: Research and Internationalisation. Photo: Stephen Collett.

The Way Forward

“I’ve became convinced,” Prof Naudé emphasised, “about South Africa and the Global South’s ability to contribute to global knowledge production.” Prof Naudé and her team are therefore adding a South African voice to several multicultural, multinational projects, including the African Long-Life Study – in collaboration with the University of Zurich – and the Selves within Selves project. Prof Naudé’s vision, however, is to ultimately establish an Identity Research Hub at the UFS to consolidate research activities in this field and to formalise interdisciplinary partnerships.

Watch recording video below:

News Archive

State of our campuses: Impact of non-completion of the 2016 academic year on UFS students

2016-10-08

Dear Parents/Guardians and Students,

Impact of non-completion of the 2016 academic year

The University of the Free State (UFS) reiterates its support and commitment to the cause of free higher education. We have stated our position in all the available spaces. We want to work with UFS students to put pressure on the government to commit itself to accept the many suggestions put forward to make free education possible within a negotiated timeframe.

We are also seriously committed to our responsibility of providing education to all students enrolled at the university. We are doing our outmost to ensure that we can resume academic activities next week.

Description: " Academic non-completion 2016 Tags: " Academic non-completion 2016

We want to bring to your attention what will happen to individual students if the UFS cannot resume classes fully on Monday 10 October 2016.

Currently we have extended the academic year by one week. Some faculties are working on Saturdays and Sundays, starting earlier and finishing later to complete the material that needs to be taught and the practical work that students need to do to be able to write exams.

In the three biggest faculties at the university: Education, the Humanities, and Natural Sciences, this is what will happen:

Education will fail to graduate 1 193 students
Humanities will fail to graduate 1 125 students
Natural and Agricultural Sciences will fail to graduate 1 390 students

In the professional faculties: Economic and Management Sciences, Health Sciences, and Law, this will happen:

Economic and Management Sciences will fail to graduate 997 students
Health Sciences will fail to graduate 633 students
Law will fail to graduate 619 students

In total, approximately 6 000 students will not receive complete transcripts of their degrees and the certificates for their qualifications.

The university currently has 3 238 students on NSFAS bursaries. None of these students will be able to apply for bursaries for the lost year. They will be regarded as having failed or not completed their courses. They will not only miss this year, but the opportunity of studying in the future.

These students come from families to which their success in higher education was supposed to mean a change in the future of the entire family. Some parents/guardians hold more than one job to be able to pay tuition fees.

In not allowing the year to continue and students to finish, we are throwing away the efforts that entire families of poor people have made for four or five years to put their children through university. The promise of free education for future generations means nothing to these families who are poor in the present.

In terms of the academic calendar, it is a false argument to say that universities will be able to enrol first-years, because what 2016 students will miss, is the second semester.

We do not have the capacity to teach double the number of students in the second semester. This also misses the point that those students who were completing modules in order to graduate, will waste an entire year (assuming they have funding) to complete their degrees. This argument does not see the knock-on effect that students, not promoting in modules from first to second and second to third year, etc., will have. Finally, this also misses the point of what will happen to students who have to repeat first-semester modules.

In terms of academic staff, students are discounting the willingness of academic staff to teach double or to have the academic year extended by approximately six weeks between teaching and examinations. The same can be said for all the administrative and support staff required for running the university.

In our case, all the students in the University Preparation Programme (UPP) on the South Campus in Bloemfontein will be stuck without being able to move into mainstream modules, preventing a new intake of UPP students for 2017. These are the poorest and most disadvantaged students at the UFS.

It is absolutely necessary to find a means of protest and political action that will not jeopardise the future of current students and the country’s desperate need for critical skills. The interdict against violent protest secured by the UFS is still in force. The police will intervene if the interdict is not respected and the UFS will have no control over police actions.

We trust that parents/guardians and students understand the implications of the situation.

Kind regards,

Prof Nicky Morgan
Acting Rector
University of the Free State

Released by:
Lacea Loader (Director: Communication and Brand Management)
Telephone: +27 51 401 2584 | +27 83 645 2454
Email: news@ufs.ac.za | loaderl@ufs.ac.za
Fax: +27 51 444 6393

State of our campuses #11: Academic activities on UFS campuses continue

State of our campuses #10: Impact of non-completion of the 2016 academic year on UFS students

State of our campuses #9: Academic programme on all UFS campuses to resume on Monday 10 October 2016

State of our campuses #8: UFS extends vacation as from 28 September until 7 October 2016, 28 September 2016

State of our campuses #7: All three UFS campuses will be closed today, 27 September 2016.

State of our campuses #6: All UFS campuses reopen on Tuesday 27 September 2016

State of our campuses #5: UFS campuses to remain closed on Monday 26 September 2016

State of our campuses #4: Decisions about the UFS academic calendar

State of our campuses #3: UFS campuses closed until Friday 23 September 2016

State of our campuses #2: UFS Bloemfontein and South Campuses closed on Tuesday 20 September 2016 (19 September 2016)

State of our campuses #1: Academic activities suspended on UFS Bloemfontein Campus (19 September 2016)

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