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25 March 2024
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Story Anthony Mthembu
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Photo Lutendo Mabata
Prof Nompumelelo Zondi, the newly appointed Vice-Dean: Research and Postgraduate Studies in the Faculty of The Humanities at the University of the Free State (UFS).
Prof Nompumelelo Zondi has been appointed as Vice-Dean: Research and Postgraduate Studies in the Faculty of The Humanities at the University of the Free State (UFS). Prof Zondi assumed this new role on 1 March 2024 after serving as the Head of Department for African Languages at the University of Pretoria for seven years. “I consider this appointment as an opportunity of growth and learning more about higher education and the Faculty of The Humanities at large,” she said.
Prof Zondi indicates that part of her role is to spearhead the UFS Vision130 within the Faculty of The Humanities, and to ensure that the faculty assists the institution in becoming research-led, student-centred, and globally impactful.
Motivation for assuming this role
One of the primary reasons that led her to consider this role is sharing the knowledge she acquired as part of the Fulbright South African Research Scholar Programme. As a result of that experience and exposure, which went beyond the Ohio State University, she felt it befitting to implement some of the insights she acquired on a bigger scale. Therefore, even though she was impactful in her previous role, Prof Zondi believes that this is an exceptional and more desirable platform to do so. “I feel that I will have easier access to departments within the faculty, while also encouraging and supporting interdepartmental and faculty collaborations,” she explained.
A significant component of Vision 130
He believes that the elements that make up Vision 130 are interrelated. While she considers research central to Vision 130 – as she begins her journey at the UFS, she feels students deserve to be nurtured to further contribute to the university’s impactful research. Thus, student-centredness is the way to go. “I believe that students must be major role players in this Vision130; we must include them in the interactions and discussions that are part of the university’s strategic plan as well as in decision-making processes,” she said. As such, according to Prof Zondi, the more the faculty and the institution care for the students and involve them in Vision130 and in collaborations, the more research outputs the university will achieve.
Knowledge in the blood
2009-08-05
| Knowledge in the blood |
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 The book Knowledge in the blood, by Prof. Jonathan Jansen, Rector and Vice Chancellor, is available at a bookstore on the Thakaneng Bridge.
Knowledge in the blood
Confronting race and the apartheid past
Professor Jonathan D. Jansen
978 1 91989 520 8
225 x 152mm
336 pages
Soft cover
May 2009
R250.00 (incl. VAT)
UCT Press
Southern African rights
This book tells the story of white South African students—how they remember and enact an Apartheid past. How is it that young Afrikaners, born at the time of Mandela’s release from prison, hold firm views about a past they never lived, rigid ideas about black people, and fatalistic thoughts about the future? Jonathan Jansen, the first black dean of education at the historically white University of Pretoria, was dogged by this question during his tenure, and Knowledge in the Blood seeks to answer it.
While Jansen originally set out simply to convey a story of how white students change under the leadership of a diverse group of senior academics, Knowledge in the Blood ultimately became an unexpected account of how these students in turn changed him.
“Brave, discerning, and deeply affecting. Bringing realism and rare moral generosity to the most difficult of conflicts, Jonathan Jansen illuminates the struggles faced by the inheritors of violence, as they move from pride and prejudice to a new and larger knowledge. An act of empathy as well as penetrating analysis, Knowledge in the Blood is an inspiring blueprint for thinking about social and personal transformation.”
—Eva Hoffman, author of After Such Knowledge
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