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Mokitlane Manyarela celebrates four decades of commitment to the UFS

17 October 2023 | Story Nonsindiso Qwabe | Photo Nonsindiso Qwabe

He has seen the many changing faces of the Qwaqwa Campus, and four decades later, Mokitlane Manyarela says he would not have it any other way.

Fondly known on campus as ‘Ntate Manyarela’, he has been with the campus for 41 years, having started on 1 January 1982 at the ripe age of 18 years. Manyarela recently received a long-service award for 36 years of service, dating back to when the campus moved to its current location from where it started at Lere la Tshepe in 1982.

He recalls arriving at the campus offices in town in 1982 seeking employment, as there were no “buildings or campus” back then.

“I started working as a general worker because there was nothing else to do. All the university’s content would come from Turfloop in those days. As time went by, I worked in the reprographic section, printing exam papers. That was my first official job until the campus moved in 1988 to where we’re now located. All the buildings that are now filling this campus were constructed right in front of my eyes,” he said.

He went on to work for various departments on the campus, such as procurement, cashiers, and finance. In 2007, he joined the transport department, and that is where he is still working as an assistant officer. “What’s made me stay this long is not getting into fights with anyone and always following instructions given to me. I’ve worked under many different bosses, and I believe that none of them have anything negative to say about me. Therefore, I can say I’ve never had a reason to leave because everything I’ve done, I have done wholeheartedly.”

Manyarela said the university also afforded his wife and children the opportunity to obtain their degrees, which is something he considers a huge achievement. “All that I have has been achieved at this institution. It’s been a wonderful journey. I have no complaints, and I am content. I’ve reached my old age here. I don’t know any other job or work environment; this place has become like home to me, and I’m prepared to still give my all to this university, even though old age is now catching up with me.”

News Archive

PSP produces first Y1-rating in UFS Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences

2015-12-14

Dr Andrew Cohen, a research fellow at the University of the Free State, recently received a distinguished National Research Foundation Y1-rating.
Photo: Sonia Small

The latest success story of the Vice-Chancellor’s Prestige Scholars Programme (PSP) is that the first National Research Foundation (NRF) Y1-rating was awarded recently to a scholar while teaching in the Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences at the University of the Free State (UFS).

Dr Andrew Cohen received this distinguished rating on 10 November 2015. It is awarded to a “young” (younger than 40) scholar five years or less post-PhD, whose curriculum vitae predicts, according to a panel of international and local reviewers, that he is poised to become a leader in his field. Dr Cohen is a research fellow at the UFS.

This rating is a reflection of Dr Cohen’s record over the past eight years, and the scholarly environment he was part of at the UFS under leadership of Prof Ian Phimister. Cohen is currently a research fellow in Prof Phimister’s International Studies Group. He taught economic history in the Department of Economics until September 2015, when he joined the School of History at the University of Kent.

Dr Cohen’s professional trajectory is emblematic of the visionary approach of the UFS Prestige Scholars Programme (PSP): to support prestige scholars with advanced mentorship, and the creation of a college of peers in order to nurture intellectual breadth and depth to generate knowledge over disciplines.

The PSP was initiated by Prof Jonathan Jansen, Vice-Chancellor and Rector of the UFS in 2011.

“Jonathan Jansen’s prestige scholars have become sought after in the academic community at large, as this recent appointment at the University of Kent indicates,” says Professor Neil Roos, co-director of the PSP. “Yet the alumni’s commitment to the programme, the university and their peers continues.”

Cohen is the editor (with Casper Andersen) of the five volume, The Government and Administration of Africa, 1880-1939. Dr Cohen’s next project is forthcoming from I.B. Tauris, The Politics and Economics of Decolonisation: The Failed Experiment of the Central African Federation.

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