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Growing partnership with HSMW in Germany brings new perspectives on internationalisation

19 February 2025 | Story Leonie Bolleurs | Photo Supplied

Prof Hagenmeier and Prof Jacobs — Prof Lynette Jacobs and Dr Cornelius Hagenmeier, one of her hosts at the Mittweida University of Applied Sciences (HSMW). Prof Jacobs, a visiting professor at this institution, had the opportunity to visit the HSMW on a guest scholarship grant from the State of Saxony.

Since its foundation in 1867, Mittweida University of Applied Sciences (HSMW) has had internationality as a trademark. In its early decades, more than half of its students came from abroad to study at this institution in Saxony, Germany. Today, the university is working with more than 100 partners worldwide, including the University of the Free State (UFS).

In September last year, the UFS signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU), outlining the intention to collaborate on the exchange of academic staff and researchers for teaching, lectures, and research, as well as for the sharing of expertise. Additionally, the institutions are also looking at student exchange opportunities, conducting joint research projects, hosting symposia, seminars, and conferences together, and exchanging academic information and materials.

Internationalisation as a cross-cutting process

Recently, Prof Lynette Jacobs, the interim Director of the Office for International Affairs at the UFS, visited the institution as a visiting professor at the HSMW, after receiving a guest professorship grant from the Free State of Saxony in Germany.

This opportunity not only provided her with the chance to gain insight into the HSMW and build an understanding of the possibilities for collaboration between the two institutions but also allowed her to directly contribute to their strategy development. She worked on a research project with her hosts, Prof Ramona Kusche, Dean of Studies, Global Communications in Business and Culture, and Dr Cornelius Hagenmeier, Head of Internationalisation. “We responded to the question of the extent to which the HSMW has achieved the goals of its 2018 internationalisation strategy,” she says.

In this study, they found that the HSMW is known for its attractive study programmes, forward-thinking content, interactive approaches, and its innovativeness and agility. This is reflected in the views of staff and students who participated in the interviews and the survey. It also became clear that the HSMW’s internationalisation strategy intentionally draws on the character and strengths of the university, which has enabling structures and appropriate governance frameworks for internationalisation. She says this research provided her with an opportunity to reflect on the UFS’ institutional strategic plans for internationalisation and how to strengthen the strategy and its implementation.

Internationalisation strategies in a different context

“The engagement with the HSMW provided me with an important additional perspective for the internationalisation strategy revision process at the UFS,” she states, adding that spending time at the HSMW gave her a unique understanding of the development and implementation of internationalisation strategies in a different context.

Besides reviewing the HSMW’s 2018 internationalisation strategy, Prof Jacobs has also collaborated on other research projects. She co-authored both a Routledge book chapter and a manuscript of a scientific article by Prof Kusche, Dr Hagenmeier, and others. As a result of the contacts she made during her visiting professorship, she is also now involved in the guest-editing of a special issue of the journal Internationalisation of Higher Education – Policy and Practice with the theme Institutional Internationalisation Strategies in a Rapidly Changing Global Environment.

Prof Jacobs delivered a number of guest lectures during her stay in Saxony, for instance, ‘Different ways of knowing, being and relating’ (to master’s students) and ‘South African culture, Ubuntu and Pan-Africanism’ (to undergraduate students). She furthermore engaged in various dialogue sessions and workshops with lecturers and researchers at the HSMW, focusing on the integration of international and intercultural dimensions in curricula or in their research. She participated in discussions with some young female academics on science and career development and contributed to an international workshop on Institutional Internationalisation Strategies in a Rapidly Changing Global Environment, where initial research findings were presented that will inform the strategy's upcoming revision.

The young but growing partnership between the UFS and the HSMW promises benefits for both institutions. Two complementary face-to-face internationalisation colloquium sessions are scheduled for 2025: the first during the HSMW International Week in June, and the second on the UFS Bloemfontein Campus in September. This will further deepen the collaboration, building a shared understanding of integrated internationalisation, contributing to scholarship of internationalisation, and enriching the academic and cultural exchange between the universities. Collaboration in terms of mentorship programmes between the two universities is on the cards, while specific departments at the UFS (e.g. the Department of Social Work and the Department of Facilities) have already started their collaboration in 2024.

For more information about partnerships, contact the Office for International Affairs at partnerships@ufs.ac.za.

News Archive

UFS awards honorary doctorates during its centenary week

2004-10-07

The University of the Free State (UFS) will award 12 honorary doctorates on Thursday 14 October 2004 to a diverse group of outstanding South Africans and international experts.

This will be the last in a group of 18 honorary doctorates that the UFS will be awarding in its centenary year.

The awards comprise of a number of well-known language experts and writers, experts in higher education, first-time awards in community service and development studies, as well as music.

“This reflects quality and also diversity, a spectrum of convictions as well as the recognition of persons who played a major role in changing society in the last couple of decades, “ says Prof Frederick Fourie, Rector and Vice-Chancellor of the UFS.

The awards can be grouped in the following categories:

Language and literature:

Mr Karel Schoeman (D Litt (hc)) – well-known Afrikaans author and former student of the UFS. Some of the awards he has received include the Hertzog prize for prose (1970, 1986 and 1995), the CNA prize (1972 and 1994), the Old Mutual prize (1985 and 1991), the SABC prize for best television drama in 1990, the M Net book prize in 1997 and the State President award (former President Nelson Mandela: Order for Excellent Service – silver) in 1999. It is an honor for the UFS to have this gifted and creative person among its former students. This conferment is a fitting recognition of his status as leading South African writer.

Ms Antjie Krog (D Litt (hc)) – well-known South African poet and former student of the UFS. Her popularity as poet is evident in her piercing honesty and unequalled power of expression. Some of the awards she has received include the Eugéne Marais prize in 1973, the Rapport prize in 1987, the Hertzog prize in 1990 and the RAU prize in 2000. Her writing has been translated into seven languages. She has also received numerous honors for her involvement in and journalistic documentation of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s (TRC) proceedings. It is therefore an exceptional privilege for her alma mater to honor her with an honorary doctorate.

Prof Jaap Steyn (D Litt (et phil) (hc)) – recently, Prof Steyn again distinguished himself as biographer whose thorough research is apparent in the published biographies of illustrious writers such as NP van Wyk Louw and MER. The numerous awards, among which the Stals prize from the South African Academy of Science and Art for the Van Wyk publication, are a matter of record. He conducted the research for this great prize-winning work as honorary professor at the UFS.

Prof Jakes Gerwel (D Phil (hc)) – Chancellor of the University of Rhodes and Director of Naspers, Old Mutual, Gold Fields and Brimstone. His doctoral thesis was published in The Netherlands under the title Literatuur en apartheid. Konsepsies van “gekleurdes” in die Afrikaanse roman tot 1948 (1983). He received an honorary doctorate from Clark College ( Atlanta), the City University of New York and Missouri in the USA, the University of the Western Cape, the University of Cape Town, the University of Natal, Rhodes University, the University of Stellenbosch and the University of the Witwatersrand. He is also outstanding professor in the Humanities at the University of the Western Cape, honorary professor in the Humanities at the University of Pretoria, and was the chairman of the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC).

Development Studies:

Dr Frederick van Zyl Slabbert (D Phil (hc)) – for his academic achievements, his endeavors for bringing about a peaceful transition in South Africa and his demonstration of the social investment role of the corporate sector. Dr Van Zyl Slabbert has received honorary degrees from the University of Natal and the Simon Fraser University in Canada. He has published seven books and various academic articles.

Community Service:

Prof Robert G Bringle (D Phil (hc)) – from the Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) in the USA. He is currently Chancellor’s Professor of Psychology and Philanthropic Studies at the IUPUI and also Director of the IUPUI’s Centre for Service Learning. He is honored for his exceptional contribution to several of the UFS’s community service projects as well as his role in the advancement of a multi- and inter-disciplinary approach to academic development and the integration of service learning within the faculties of the UFS. He has also made a valuable contribution to the conceptual framework of the UFS’s unique community service policy and more recently to the advancement of a research culture regarding community service.

Higher education:

Dr Khotso Mokhele (D Phil (hc)), President of the National Research Foundation (NRF) is honored for his contribution to the South African higher education sector. He has also made a substantial contribution to the development of the research capacity of universities and technikons in South Africa. Dr Mokhele was born in Bloemfontein and matriculated at the Moroka High School in Thaba Nchu.

Prof Saleem Badat (D Phil (hc)), the Chief Executive Officer of the Council on Higher Education (CHE). Prof Badat has devoted himself to transforming and building South African higher education, and has constantly challenged the higher education sector to retain the moral basis of higher education and tackle its challenges with intellectual honesty, ingenuity, creativity and courage. He is honored for his intellectual leadership in the development of a equitable, just and quality higher education system in South Africa.

Law:

Prof HA (Boelie) Wessels (D Legum (hc)) – for his contribution to the fields of Roman Law, Legal History at the UFS. He is currently a part-time lecturer at the UFS’s Faculty of Law.

Medicine:

Prof CJC Nel (D Phil (hc) Posthumous) – for the way in which he strived for the advancement of excellent medical education in the country. Prof Nel also did pioneering work in the field of transformation in higher education. Under his guidance the School of Medicine at the UFS became one of the first medical schools to adopt a parallel-medium system of instruction.

Music:

Prof Leo Quayle (D Mus (hc)) – for the significant contributions he has made to the development of music – not only in Bloemfontein, but also on national level and abroad. His initiative, enthusiasm and dedication contributed to the eventual founding of the Free State Musicon, as well as the first symphony orchestra and the first string quartet in Bloemfontein. Prof Quayle is a former head of the Department of Music at the UFS.

Prof Jack de Wet (D Mus (hc)) – well-known for his exceptional contribution to violin tuition in South Africa. As pedagogue of international stature, he still moulds violinists who compete at national and international level. At an advanced stage of his career, he still actively conveys his knowledge, experience and distinctive insight in his field of speciality to yet another new generation of young violin teachers. Today the symphony orchestras in Bloemfontein and Port Elizabeth also stand on the foundations laid by him.

Media release
Issued by: Lacea Loader
Media Representative
Tel: (051) 401-2584
Cell: 083 645 2454
E-mail: loaderl.stg@mail.uovs.ac.za
7 October 2004

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