Latest News Archive

Please select Category, Year, and then Month to display items

UFS Book Launch Invitation - 2024 State of Nation: Quality of Life and Wellbeing

23 May 2024

The Vice-Chancellor and Principal, Prof Francis Petersen, invites you to attend the upcoming book launch of State of the Nation: Quality of Life and Wellbeing.

Celebrating its 20^th year of existence, this HSRC flagship publication serves as an invaluable, independent scholarly resource offering insights into the current state of South Africa. The theme of the 2024 edition, Quality of Life and Wellbeing, underscores the commitment to understanding and addressing critical societal issues. Edited by Profs Vasu Reddy, Narnia Bohler-Muller, Zitha Mokomane, and Crain Soudien, this edition builds on the preceding editions, focusing on HSRC priorities of poverty and inequality in novel and relevant ways.

During the launch, UFS scholars and editors will hold an interactive session and panel discussion; we look forward to your participation, which will help to enrich the conversations.

Date: Thursday 13 June 2024

Time: 15:00 to 16:30 (guests required to be seated by 14:45)

Venue: Equitas Auditorium, Bloemfontein Campus

RSVP: https://ufsweb.co/3QGWpXY before 10 June 2024

Contact: For more information, please contact Pienaaran1@ufs.ac.za

ONLY MS Teams for Qwaqwa and South Campus staff (upon request to the RSVP address)

Books available for purchase at the event venue. Card payments will only be accepted.

News Archive

Community engagement must be a core function of universities

2009-05-21

Members of the NatCEMF Steering Committee are, from the left: Mr Jerome Slamat, Senior Director: Community Interaction, Stellenbosch University, Ms Beatrix Bouwman, Manager: Community Engagement, North-West University, Rev Kiepie Jaftha, Chief Director: Community Service, UFS and chairperson of the committee, Prof. Allan Femi Lana, Director: Institute for Rural Development and Community Engagement, Mangosuthu University of Technology, Prof. Seth Pollack, Fulbright Scholar, University of Western Cape (guest speaker at the meeting), Prof. Denver Hendricks, Director: Community Engagement, University of Pretoria, and Prof. Priscilla Daniels, Chairperson: Human Ecology and Research and CHESP Research Coordinator, University of the Western Cape.
Photo: Lacea Loader

It is important that all tertiary institutions in South Africa should work together and commit themselves to advance the cause of community engagement in the country.

This was one of the main outcomes of the second meeting held by the National Community Engagement Manager’s Forum (NatCEMF) at the South Campus of the University of the Free State (UFS) in Bloemfontein recently. The meeting was attended by 34 representatives of 16 higher education institutions in the country.

“I am astounded at the interest in this matter. The representatives are committed to make community engagement a core function of their institutions and we all agreed that we should get more involved in expanding this across all institutions. A need for a formal structure for us all to work together and have a more collective voice was also identified,” said Rev Kiepie Jaftha, Chief Director: Community Service at the UFS and Chairperson of the NatCEMF Steering Committee.

“There is a growing need to expand and develop our engagement with communities – to share our experiences and best practices and to learn from each other. There are universities that are doing excellent work in this field and, by having a formal structure, we can do a lot more towards advancing community engagement,” said Rev Jaftha.

The meeting identified matters such as the coordination of higher education institutions’ involvement in community engagement, the facilitation of research about community engagement, promoting service learning as transformation, the establishment of a community engagement resource centre and the organisation of a national community engagement conference as some of its aims. A national steering committee was also elected.

Back

Economic and Management Sciences

Education

Health Sciences

The Humanities

Law

Natural and Agricultural Sciences

Theology and Religion

Open Distance Learning

Business School

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