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14 December 2023 | Story Dr Jared McDonald | Photo Supplied
Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Conference
From the left: Dr Eleanor Bernard, Assistant Director in the Centre for Teaching and Learning on the UFS Qwaqwa Campus; Dr Jared McDonald, Chief of Staff in the Office of the Vice-Chancellor and Principal; and Prof Pearl Sithole, Campus Vice-Principal: Academic and Research on the Qwaqwa Campus.

From 21 to 23 November, more than 160 delegates gathered at the Golden Gate Highlands National Park in the Eastern Free State for the fourth biennial conference on Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SOTL) in the South, dubbed SOTL 4 the South.

This year’s iteration was proudly hosted by the University of the Free State (UFS) and organised by Dr Jared McDonald, Chief of Staff in the Office of the Vice-Chancellor and Principal; Dr Eleanor Bernard, Assistant Director in the Centre for Teaching and Learning on the UFS Qwaqwa Campus; and Prof Zach Simpson, Editor-in-Chief of the SOTL in the South journal. Established and emerging scholars, as well as postgraduate students working in the field of teaching and learning from across disciplines in Southern Africa, came together to share ideas, debate perspectives, and learn from experiences related to the conference theme: Teaching and Learning for Sustainable Futures.

The programme included presentations on a wide variety of topics, such as the challenges and opportunities of artificial intelligence in higher education, academic literacy, student success, teaching and learning for sustainable development, curriculum design, and digital futures. The programme also included two keynote presentations by leading scholars in education for sustainability, Prof Heila Lotz-Sisitka, Distinguished Professor and SARChI Research Chair in Global Change and Social Learning Systems in the Environmental Learning Research Centre at Rhodes University, and Prof Kasturi Behari-Leak, Associate Professor of Higher Education Studies and Dean of the University of Cape Town’s Centre for Higher Education Development.

The organisers were delighted with the quality of the scholarship that was shared. “This conference has been 18 months in the making, and we are grateful to all the delegates for embracing, and engaging with, the conference’s theme. We are also appreciative to all the reviewers on the Scientific Review Committee who were generous with their time, reflections, and critiques in assisting us to deliver a compelling, impactful programme,” said Dr McDonald. Dr Bernard added that “the conference would not have been possible without the generous support of the University of the Free State’s Executive Management and Centre for Teaching and Learning, as well as the senior management of the Qwaqwa Campus, who have supported the conference from the time it was just an idea”.

Prof Zach Simpson expressed his gratitude to the UFS for its support and assistance. “The last in-person conference of SOTL in the South was in 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic. It was wonderful to see so many scholars come together in a beautiful location to engage with a compelling and topical conference theme.” Selected papers have been invited to contribute to a special issue of SOTL in the South, edited by the organisers and due for publication in mid-2024.

SOTL is an informal ‘body’ that is not affiliated with any particular parent organisation or institution. Its aim is to advance scholarship in teaching and learning across the Global South – conceived of not just in geographic terms – but as concerned with questions of power, access, inequity, and marginalisation, even where these might be present in the Global ‘North’. Moreover, it aims to give voice to novice SOTL practitioners and to serve as a platform for academics, particularly novice academics, to contribute their scholarly work.

News Archive

International scholar talks about the right to food in South Africa
2012-06-06

 

Prof. Frans Swanepoel, Senior Director Research Development; Prof. Sakiko Fukuda-Parr; and Prof. Melanie Walker.
Photo: Supplied
06 June 2012

Prof. Sakiko Fukuda-Parr of the New School University, New York, in the United States of America, recently presented a seminar on the Bloemfontein Campus. The seminar was hosted by Prof. Melanie Walker, Senior Professor and SARChI-nominated candidate for Higher Education and Human Development.

Prof. Fukuda-Parr, currently Head of the Graduate Programme in International Affairs at the New School University, spoke about the Right to Food in SA. She explored the relationship between two approaches – human rights and capabilities (or human development). This was done to enhance the understanding of both as theoretical paradigms, as public policy frameworks and as approaches to development.

Prof. Fukuda-Parr is a Japanese national, a graduate from Cambridge University in the UK and a former professor at Harvard University in the USA. From 1995 to 2004, she was main author and Director of the UNDP Human Development Reports.
 
In addition to these reports, some of her publications include: The Gene Revolution: GM Crops and Unequal Development; Readings in Human Development; Rethinking Technical Cooperation - Reforms for capacity building in Africa; Capacity for Development - Old Problems, New Solutions and numerous papers and book chapters on issues of poverty, violent conflict, gender, human rights and technology. She was appointed by the United Nations Secretary-General to the Committee on Development Policy.

 

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