This Week @Fort Hare Vol 3 Issue 3
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This Week @Fort Hare Vol 3, issue 3 • 19 February 2021 In this issue: >> Looking Back on the 2020 Academic Year: Deans Share their Reflections >> Registration Under Lockdown >> Faculty of Health Sciences Secures SAMRC Research Grant >> 1st Cohort of Speech Therapists Enters Final Year of Study >> Nelson R Mandela School of Law Introduces a New Qualification >> Dr Mbese Joins Prestigious National Future Professors Programme >> UFH Turns 105: Music Department Renders Impromptu Virtual Concert >> New Institutional Parliament Leaders in Seat >> SRC Donates 3000 Packets of Sanitary Towels to students >> Fine Arts Student Works Go on Display >> UFH Merchandise Catalogue A product of Institutional Advancement LOOKING BACK ON THE 2020 ACADEMIC YEAR: PROF VUSI SITHEMBISO MNCUBE Dean: Faculty of Education Deans of Faculties Share Dear Colleagues Their Reflections I am writing this communiqué with a deep sense of gratitude because through it all, we have come this far. The 2020 academic year was clouded with so much uncertainty. However, your commitment and dedication restored certainty. The 2020 Academic-Year has come to an end, and it has been a year like no I have taken a moment to reflect on the journey we other. The advent of Covid-19 brought about several changes in the way the have travelled during a very stormy Covid-19 context of university operates. We were plunged into uncharted waters but we sailed stringency. I have listened with admiration as academics safely and successfully. Along the way we lost some of our colleagues who narrated how they sacrificed their personal cellphones to be used as lecture rooms/halls through WhatsApp succumbed to the virus – may their souls continue to rest in peace. messages. I have observed colleagues navigating Notwithstanding the challenges encountered during this period, we have through the Blackboard space, trying to mediate learning despite the distance. also achieved pockets of success that we are proud of. We held two virtual graduation ceremonies and came out of Administration by inaugurating a I thank you for your flexibility, willingness to learn and change. I am so grateful for the calmness and humility I would not be doing justice if I did not thank our support new University Council. demonstrated during online classes. There were staff led by the Faculty Manager. I thank you for being the challenges - including infrastructural challenges that we pillars of strength to the academics. The faculty would The university pushed hard to be able to launch in 2021 two ground- had no power to unravel. However, we managed to rise not be presenting solid reports without your help. breaking qualifications: Bachelor of Nursing and Midwifery and a Masters of above those challenges. We rose above the occasion. It is in order to extend my gratitude to the Deputy Deans, You have been the Faculty’s feet, arms, ears, eyes and Law in Competition Regulation. Heads of Schools and Deputy Heads of Schools for their mouth, reaching out to all students, despite their socio- leadership and unwavering support throughout the 2020 economic status. I can confidently say, we have laid a As we individually reflect on the year that was,ThisWeek@FortHare is excited academic year. I wish you more strength as we prepare foundation upon which we will build a future aligned to publish heartfelt pieces penned by our Dean of Faculties. for the 2021 academic year. The storm is not over, but to the ‘new normal’ and being catapulted to the Fourth the sky is slowly clearing and we have to remain vigilant. Here’s to a high-performance 2021! Together in Excellence. Industrial Revolution. Page 1 | ThisWeek@FortHare Vol 3, issue 3 • 19 February 2021 | Page 2 PROF FHULU NEKWEVHA DR NOMBULELO LUBISI Dean: Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities Dean: Faculty of Law The advent of COVID 19 and its fatalities and infection To say the 2020 academic year has been exceedingly rates had a devastating impact on the operations of the challenging is probably beyond dispute. The year has University of Fort Hare as a higher education institution tested and extended the resources, abilities and stamina in South Africa. The fact that the Covid-19 pandemic of students, staff (both academic and support) as well as emerged shortly after our institution was placed under those of Faculty and University leadership in ways never administration in 2019 exacerbated matters for the seen before. However, we now find ourselves at the cusp institution. of completing the daunting year and about to start a new one. For this, as Dean and as the collective leadership of The university was in the process of devising strategies the Faculty, we are truly grateful. to navigate the administration systems when the COVID 19 pandemic emerged and resulted in the national To the students: It has been an ‘against all odds’ year lockdown and the closing of all education institutions. in your supreme effort not only to make something of the academic year, but also to actually make a success Thanks to the stewardship of the Vice-Chancellor, Prof of it. Your willingness to adapt to new systems and Sakhela Buhlungu, his Management Executive Committee processes, your patience, fortitude and grace in the face (MEC) as well as the Extended Management Team (EMT) of uncertainty, lack of resources and tools, the enervating - the university worked hard to satisfy the Department realities of a global pandemic and plans that often were of Higher Education and Training (DHET) requirements. characterised by considerable delays has been nothing These resulted in the lifting of the administration of the We want to thank our SSH academic staff, support staff short of amazing. The academic performance of this up those plans and planned again, studied new rules, university towards the end of 2020, in addition to the and students for the ease with which they adapted past year bears testimony of your commitment to the new guidelines (some of which kept changing), fielded inauguration of the new University Council. to the new online blackboard teaching, learning and academic enterprise. Regrettably, while every effort has questions to which you yourselves had no answers, and Conditions that had to be met included inter alia, the assessment innovations. We want to mention our been made to cater for all students, there are some for gracefully took criticisms that were often unwarranted. updating of university polices, cleaning up the university’s Deputy Deans, both in Research and Internationalization whom circumstances made it impossible to succeed or to To all: Our most sincere condolences to those who lost Programme Qualification Mix (PQM), avoiding duplication and Teaching, Learning and Community Engagement, continue at all. To them, we say take heart and try again loved ones at this time, strength and healing to those of programmes on more than one site and ensuring in partnership with the Heads of Departments and in this coming year or in the near future. who were infected and are still recovering. We are also alignment of all programmes according to requirements. Directors of Centres, for the ceaseless efforts they made To the Faculty staff: How you put all hands on deck in to monitor, evaluate and provide useful continuous grateful for those who got infected, recovered and put The University of Fort Hare will henceforth strive towards a bid to serve and save the academic year has been truly feedback for the purpose of further enhancement of their shoulders back to the wheel undaunted. quality teaching and learning and cutting-edge research incredible. The technophobes had to shed their fears these processes. As we complete the 2020 academic as a world class institution. and misgivings as almost everything became digitised We are not promised a better 2021 but we take comfort year, the Faculty wants to formally acknowledge the in the knowledge that the lessons of 2020 have given us In collaboration with the Teaching and Learning Centre and digitalisation took centre stage instantly. In the face role of each and every one of us in the teamwork which a real chance to better navigate the waters of 2021. The (TLC) and under the leadership of the Deputy Vice- of plans that shifted and changed and vital data that emanated into a successful 2020 academic year. year 2020 has tested all our virtues - patience, fortitude, Chancellor, Academic Affairs, Prof Renuka Vithal, the remained unreliable and uncertain as knowledge and self-discipline, commitment, team effort, adaptability, Faculty of Social Science and Humanities (SSH) academic Enkosi! Thank you! Baie Dankie! the trajectory of the pandemic kept shifting, you stayed positive attitude and more. staff was workshopped on online backboard teaching focused but flexible and adaptive. Notwithstanding your own challenges, those tasked with teaching taught and and learning at the beginning of the national lockdown. For us as the Law Faculty committed to transformative assessed and those tasked with providing administrative It thus became compulsory for everyone to learn and constitutionalism, this past year has highlighted support steadfastly continued to do so. Again, thank you navigate themselves in the ‘new normal’. more than ever before the case for socio-economic all. Thank you very much. transformation, distributive justice, intellectual property Faculty Higher Degrees meetings were now held through law and access to medicines and quality health care, the online Microsoft Teams. The embracing of the online To the leadership: You found yourself seized with the transformation of legal education itself, as well as well as blackboard teaching and learning approach heralded responsibility of guiding, re-assuring, protecting, and the practice of law and more. the adoption of Fourth Industrial Revolution practices many other things - even when you yourselves were in uncharted territory. There were no precedents, no in higher education.