uest speaker at the seminar in the Registrar’s Division, in celebration of Women’s Month, Mrs Desiree Wicks presented an insightful and well-articulated talk on Quilting, Fabric Art, Fabricology and other craziness – Life Balance, Therapy and an amazing Community.

August is not only a month of the celebration of womanhood and women in South Africa, but also a time to commemorate women who fought against the injustices of our societies.

The plan for the full return to campus of both staff and students took an important step on Wednesday, 18 August 2021, with the constitution of several technical Task Teams to conduct targeted assessments of the ‘COVID-19 lessons’ of the past year-and-a-half and accordingly facilitate preparations for the safe resumption of the normal University system.

The story of how a shy radio astronomer from the Eastern Cape came to be a central character in building of one of the world’s most sensitive scientific instruments involves a series of unlikely events, a startling amount of beer and popcorn, and a team fuelled by the stubborn conviction that South Africa could pull it off.

In an effort to revive and preserve indigenous African languages, Rhodes University has joined a consortium of universities to collaborate in a project funded by the European Union called BAQONDE.

The 10th of August marked the second day of the virtual Women and the Armed Struggle Colloquium presented by the Political and International Studies Department at Rhodes University, in partnership with the Centre for Women and Gender Studies at Nelson Mandela University and the Historical Studies Department at the University of Cape Town.

On the morning of 10 August, the multifaceted storyteller, poet, nurse, and uMkhonto we Sizwe veteran, Makhosazana Xaba, orated a moving keynote address.

Women's Day in South Africa marks the anniversary of the great women's march of 1956, where strong, confident, resilient and powerful women gathered at the Union buildings to protest against the carrying of passbooks.

As part of a two-day colloquium, ‘Women and 60 Years of the Armed Struggle in South Africa’, an influential panel recounted their experiences as uMkhonto we Sizwe and Azanian National Liberation Army veterans.

In a two-day virtual colloquium, the Rhodes University Political and International Studies Department collaborated with Nelson Mandela University Centre for Women and Gender Studies and the University of Cape Town's Historical Studies Department to bring together the voices and stories of women who participated in the armed struggle in South Africa.

Vaccines are ultimately the only way to ensure that we beat COVID-19, yet vaccine hesitancy remains a threat to attaining herd immunity and protecting the whole community. In this series, Virologist at Rhodes University and member of the Provincial COVID-19 Expert Panel, Professor Rosemary Dorrington, will address queries, fears, and misinformation that many of our citizens face. Question: “What are all these different coronavirus variants I keep hearing about? And which ones are affecting South Africa?”

Language constituted in how and what we ‘hear’ and ‘speak’ impacts various aspects of our reality, including how we experience the South African democracy as it stands. Those were some of the words from Judge Belinda Hartle at the virtual launch of A handbook on Legal Languages and the quest for linguistic equality in South Africa and beyond by Rhodes University alumna, Dr Zakeera Docrat, in partnership with Professor Russell Kaschula and Professor Monwabisi Ralarala.

Vaccines are ultimately the only way to ensure that we beat COVID-19, yet vaccine hesitancy remains a threat to attaining herd immunity and protecting the whole community. In this series, Virologist at Rhodes University and member of the Provincial COVID-19 Expert Panel, Professor Rosemary Dorrington, will address queries, fears, and misinformation that many of our citizens face.

Earlier this month, the final year Pharmacy students were vaccinated against COVID-19 at the Faculty of Pharmacy, followed by approximately 200 second and third year BPharm students. Pharmacy students were included in the first cohort eligible to receive COVID-19 vaccines, as they perform Work Integrated/Based Learning in clinical platforms as an essential component of their curricula.

Vaccines are ultimately the only way to ensure that we beat COVID-19, yet vaccine hesitancy remains a threat to attaining herd immunity and protecting the whole community. In this series, Virologist at Rhodes University and member of the Provincial COVID-19 Expert Panel, Professor Rosemary Dorrington, will address queries, fears, and misinformation that many of our citizens face.

Rhodes University has joined other universities in the fight against COVID-19 by establishing an on-campus vaccination site situated at its Gavin Relly Postgraduate Village.

Rhodes University lecturer in Human Kinetics and Ergonomics (HKE), Dr Jonathan Davy, has been elected President of the Ergonomics Society of South Africa (ESSA) for a period of three years.

Rhodes University academics are now using digital storytelling as an assessment tool for service learning and to generate rich qualitative data.

The Rhodes University Drama Department will be presenting two works – Mafungwashe (drama) and The Witch’s Party (physical theatre) – at the 2021 National Arts Festival. Both productions will be available through video-on-demand streaming from 13-31 July.

Rhodes University’s academic and Associate Professor Julie Coetzee has been elected President of the Entomological Society of Southern Africa (ESSA).