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UFS 2025 Official Opening Address

14 February 2025 | Story Charlene Stanley | Photo Kaleidoscope Studios

Prof Hester Klopper, newly appointed Vice-Chancellor and Principal of the University of the Free State.

Re-discovering Our Institutional Heart was the theme of the official opening address of the University of the Free State (UFS) presented by newly appointed UFS Vice-Chancellor and Principal, Prof Hester Klopper, as she addressed UFS staff members in the Odeion Auditorium on the Bloemfontein Campus.

Prof Klopper sketched the current global, national, and local contexts that have affected higher education in general, and the UFS in particular, giving an overview of where the institution has come from, where it currently is, and where it is going. She emphasised the need to focus on the qualities and research areas for which the university has become well known, and to stay true to the values and principles set out in its Vision 130.

“Vision 130 illuminates our way into the future – expounding how we want to establish ourselves as a top-tier university that is continually extending its influence and impact locally, regionally, and globally,” she said.

The institutional heart

Prof Klopper referred to the image of a heart that is reflected in the UFS marketing logo, encouraging staff to rediscover what lies at the heart of the institution, and what sets it apart.

“A university such as ours inevitably forms and moulds the lives and characters of the people associated with it; and in turn, it too is shaped and transformed by those who have graced its campuses over the decades. It too has a character. And it certainly has a heart.”

She elaborated on the metaphorical meanings locked up within the concept of a heart, touching on how it symbolised vitality, flow, and energy, interconnectedness, and a sense of belonging. She also highlighted its significance as a beacon of resilience.

“It is associated with courage and steadfastness. Over the past 120 years, the University of the Free State has prevailed despite adversity and has managed to constantly reinvent itself in order to remain relevant, without losing sight of the values in which it is anchored,” she said.

Priorities for tenure

One of the broad focus areas that Prof Klopper identified as a priority during her term was establishing the UFS as an innovation and entrepreneurial ecosystem. “This includes advancing transdisciplinary research, moving towards identifying two to three core research themes that address local, regional, and global challenges, and strengthening our unique offering,” she said.

Another focus area will be working towards systemic sustainability, which will include a disciplined approach towards financial management, as well as revision and optimisation of the academic model. She also indicated that internationalisation will be a core theme during her tenure, as will the establishment of the UFS as a first-choice employer and a magnet for talent. To this end, she announced the establishment of a VC Strategic Personnel Fund to grow and attract the best academic talent.

Innovation through connection

Prof Klopper concluded that the heartbeat of the UFS lies in innovation through connection.

For her, innovation is expressed in the university’s cutting-edge programme content, its focus on creating a culture of entrepreneurship, optimisation of the academic model, and finding new ways to diversify income streams. On the other hand, connection is reflected in heightened internationalisation, expansive collaborative networks, and a renewed focus on transdisciplinary research and real societal impact through engaged scholarship.

“My sincere wish is that each one of you will rediscover this heartbeat and that it will inspire you this year to take our great institution to even greater heights,” she said.

Click here for the official opening speech.

News Archive

Lecture by Judge Albie Sachs: ‘Sites of memory, sites of conscience’

2015-03-23

Judge Albie Sachs

Human rights activist and former Constitutional Court Judge, Albie Sachs, will deliver a public lecture on the Bloemfontein Campus. The topic of his discussion will be ‘Sites of memory, sites of conscience’. This lecture will form part of a series that focuses on how the creative arts represent trauma and memory – and how these representations may ultimately pave the way to healing historical wounds.

The details of the event are:
Date: Thursday 26 March 2015
Time: 12:30
Venue: Albert Wessels Auditorium, Bloemfontein Campus
RSVP: Jo-Anne Naidoo at Naidooja@ufs.ac.za
A South African Sign Language interpreter will be present at the event.

Joining Judge Sachs on stage as respondent will be Dr Buhle Zuma, a young scholar and lecturer at the University of Cape Town's Psychology Department.

Expressing experiences of trauma
Judge Sachs is no stranger to the use of the arts as a way of expressing the inarticulable and overwhelming experiences of trauma. Targeted as an anti-apartheid freedom fighter, he lost his right arm and was blinded in one eye in a car bomb attack in 1988. As a judge of the Constitutional Court, he spearheaded conversations about the role of the arts in our constitutional democracy. This has led to the installation of some of the best artworks by South African artists at the Constitutional Court.

Vice-Chancellor’s Lecture Series on Trauma, Memory, and Representations of the Past
This lecture will launch of the Vice Chancellor’s Lecture Series on Trauma, Memory and Representations of the Past. It forms part of a five-year research project led by Prof Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela, funded by the Mellon Foundation. The event is hosted by the UFS Trauma, Forgiveness and Reconciliation Studies.

“One of the most remarkable aspects of trauma,” Prof Gobodo-Madikizela says, “is the loss of language, a moment of rupture that produces what some scholars have referred to as ‘speechless terror’. The arts, in all its forms – literary, performance, and visual – are a viable mechanism through which the unspeakable, traumatic past may be represented.”

These artistic forms of representing trauma are at the heart of this Vice-Chancellor’s Lecture Series. “We are interested not only in how experiences that transcend language are represented through the arts,” Prof Gobodo-Madikizela explains, “but also in probing the limits of trauma theory, and how the creative arts might be employed to bear witness in a way that may open up the possibility of healing.”

Dr Buhle Zuma
Former Mandela Rhodes scholar and one of the 2011 Mail & Guardian’s 200 Young South Africans, Dr Zuma is particularly interested in issues at the heart of our rainbow nation. His current research revolves around the question of freedom: what it means to be human for black people after centuries of dehumanisation, and the role of desire and fantasy in the political imagination of post-apartheid South Africa.

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