Latest News Archive

Please select Category, Year, and then Month to display items
Previous Archive
29 September 2023 | Story Samkelo Fetile

The University of the Free State (UFS) is set to host a compelling book launch event, exploring the lasting legacy of apartheid. This thought-provoking gathering is organised by the Deputy Vice-Chancellors (Research and Internationalisation; Institutional Change, Strategic Partnerships and Societal Impact), the Directorate for Institutional Advancement, and the Faculties of Law (Centre for Human Rights) and The Humanities, with a cocktail reception to follow.

The overarching question guiding the event is a thought-provoking one: Even though apartheid has formally ended, to what extent does its legacy persist? This enquiry sets the stage for an exploration of diverse facets of this legacy by three distinguished authors – Premesh Lalu, Wahbie Long, and Saleem Badat. Their recently published works, namely Undoing Apartheid (Polity Press, 2022), Nation on the Couch: Inside South Africa’s Mind (MF Books, 2021), and Tennis, Apartheid and Social Justice: The First Non-Racial International Tennis Tour, 1971 (UKZN Press, 2023), respectively offer textured insights into the enduring shadows cast by apartheid on contemporary realities.

These authors will engage in a conversation with Sarah Nuttall, Professor of Literary and Cultural Studies at Wits and the former Director of the Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research (WISER), who served in that capacity from 2012 to 2022.


Date: 12 October 2023

Time: 16:30-18:30

Venue: Albert Wessels Auditorium, UFS Bloemfontein Campus

For those interested in attending, RSVP by 6 October 2023 through the event registration. For further information, contact Alicia Pienaar at pienaaran1@ufs.ac.za.

The Speakers

The speakers include Premesh Lalu, Research Professor and former founding director of the Centre for Humanities Research (CHR) at the University of the Western Cape (UWC); Wahbie Long, Professor in the Department of Psychology and Deputy Dean in the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Cape Town (UCT); and Saleem Badat, Research Professor in the Department of History at the UFS, former Programme Director of International Higher Education and Strategic Projects at the Andrew Mellon Foundation in New York, and former Vice-Chancellor of Rhodes University.

As South Africa grapples with the lingering impact of its apartheid history, this event promises an insightful exploration of the continuing reverberations of this historical trauma, inviting participants to reflect on the ways in which it continues to shape the present.

News Archive

UFS researcher engineers metal surfaces
2015-03-03

Shaun Cronjé, a PhD student, in a surface characterisation laboratory at the UFS.

It is well known that the surface of a component is much more vulnerable to damage than the interior, and that surface-originated degradation such as wear, corrosion, and fracture will eventually destroy the component.

“Engineering the surface, based on scientific knowledge, is essential to control these damaging processes. It also creates electronic and geometric structures on the surface which opens up a world of new devices, especially considering the properties on the nano-length scale,” said Prof Wiets Roos from the Department of Physics at the University of the Free State (UFS).

At elevated temperatures, atoms are more mobile and can migrate to grain boundaries and surfaces, which have a major influence on material properties. The redistribution of solute atoms between the surface and the bulk of the material is known as segregation. Knowing the behaviour of segregation at the surface/environment interface can be very useful in the development of new materials. As an example materials can be improved higher efficiency and lower fuel consumption, thus reducing environmental pollution.

The main aims of Prof Roos’s research are to understand surface segregation, use it as a tool, and contribute to the various surface engineering fields.

The surface characterisation laboratories at the UFS are well equipped to do high temperature segregation measurements, and have already proven a success, not only in the ability to prepare the specimens for characterisation, but also in developing models and procedures to quantify the segregation parameters.

The most recent results have demonstrated the importance of taking evaporation into account during quantification.” This has laid the foundation for future studies by installing the necessary hardware in a surface characterisation spectrometer, establishing experimental protocols, and improving an existing model (developed in this laboratory) for simulating segregation profiles,” said Prof Roos.

Segregation parameters allow the researcher to predict and utilise the surface concentration behaviour as a function of temperature and time. “This not only contributes to fields involving corrosion, oxidation, sintering, wear, chemical poisoning, powder metallurgy, and lubrication but adds to the development of self-healing devices,” said Prof Roos.

We use cookies to make interactions with our websites and services easy and meaningful. To better understand how they are used, read more about the UFS cookie policy. By continuing to use this site you are giving us your consent to do this.

Accept