Category Archives: General

General

CPUT to host MACE Congress

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Delegates from higher education institutions around the country will descend on the Bellville Campus in November for the annual Marketing Advancement and Communication in Education (MACE) Congress.

MACE Regional Chairperson Cathy Cloete said the congress will explore a host of issues, including trends shaping the South African communication industry and protecting your institution in a world of fake news.

“It will allow delegates the opportunity to benchmark and share best practice. We look forward to welcoming them to CPUT and showing them what our institution has to offer,” said Cloete.

The congress will incorporate the 2018 MACE Excellence Awards, which acknowledges the achievements of specialists and practitioners in marketing, advancement and communication in the tertiary education sector.

MACE is a membership-based organisation that fulfils a leadership role in the higher-education sector within Southern Africa by adding value to practitioners in marketing, advancement, and communication.

The congress will take place from 28 to 30 November. The gala dinner and awards function is scheduled to take place on 29 November.

Sunshine on the open road

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CPUT students and staff members will take part in this year’s Sasol Solar Car Challenge 2018, South Africa for the first time.

Held every second year, the competition sees teams from across the world design and build solar-powered vehicles to drive across South Africa in an eight day event.

Prof Graeme Oliver of the Mechanical Engineering Department has put together a team of 20 staff members and students to compete against the more than 20 local and international teams expected to participate.

Oliver initially signed CPUT up for the competition back in May, but only received confirmation of Technology Innovation Agency (TIA) funding at the end of June, leaving two months to put together the car.

The compressed time schedule meant using a design and manufacturing process that would be achievable in a limited amount of time which Oliver calls a great learning experience for everyone.

“Because this is our first time entering the Challenge there is a lot of extra learning to be done.

“As we are very new to this competition we are also happy to receive advice such as the input from our LiFePO4 battery pack fabricator, who is also sponsoring some small electrical components, on battery management and switching systems to protect our battery performance,” said Oliver.

Since the project is not integrated into a particular course or subject, students from Mechatronics, Mechanical and Electrical Engineering have volunteered to work on the team with the help of the TIA Adaptronics AMTL research unit based at CPUT.

The solar electronic car will be called CPUT Solar Flyer “because it looks a bit like a plane.”

The vehicle design will incorporate in-wheel hub motors and a covered space frame reinforced with composites for safety, with an-offset adjustable roof mounted solar array.

The solar array is assembled from commercially available panels and the hub motors are imported kits supplied by a local Cape Town supplier, with some additional design fabrication needed to mount them in motorcycle wheel rims with the in-wheel hydraulic disk brakes.

The 20 strong team is hard at work in the Adaptronics AMTL building, when teaching and learning schedules allow, but not all will travel to Pretoria for the actual road trip.

The team who do eventually make the journey will drive the car from Pretoria to Stellenbosch between 22 and 29 September, covering a set distance every day.

Written by Theresa Smith

Positivity infuses Vice-Chancellor’s vision

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One month into his new job as Vice-Chancellor, Dr Chris Nhlapo is already seeing small changes that he is optimistic will translate into a transformed CPUT ready to tackle its Vision 2030 ambitions.

Nhlapo has been at the institution for 11 years and is the architect of the university’s research and innovation blueprint, the seeds of this initially sown when CPUT was still grappling with its transformation from a Technikon into a University of Technology.

These seeds are now bearing fruit and Nhlapo says CPUT is primed and in position to take its rightful place as a leader in the fourth industrial revolution where robotics and artificial intelligence are key industries.

“This institution is one of the top universities in the country and I am positive that it can and will be done,” he says.

Nhlapo says his career at the National Research Foundation and later as Deputy Vice-Chancellor Research, Technology, Innovation and Partnerships has prepared him well for the rigours of the job at hand.

“I have to say thank you to the former VC’s in my career who have allowed me the space to experiment and try some of the ideas that I had. They created a positivity in me and that infuses the attitude that I now have for the role of VC.

“There is much that can be done and it will be done, with the support of my executive management team we will accomplish our ambitions.”

Nhlapo says evidence of the hard work taking place across campuses is already being felt.

“Years ago at the NRF I would do campus visits and I was always struck by how well maintained the campus was – from the gardens to the buildings. When I returned for the second semester in July I was reminded of that same feeling when I drove into campus and walked into the administration building with its shiny floor.”

Nhlapo is determined that all staff should feel the same sense of pride and a major infrastructure and development renovation is underway across campuses to return them to their former glory. From new residences to fixing the damage caused during crisis the new look buildings are already common place.

“CPUT does not belong to us who are here now, rather we are the guardians of the institution for the future generations. We will leave behind a legacy far beyond our time here,” says Nhlapo.

State of the art makeover for nursing lab

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The Clinical Skills Laboratory in the Department of Nursing Science recently received a multi-million rand upgrade.

The laboratory now boasts new simulation equipment and academic and clinical staff members have received training to maximise the use of the new simulation models.

The models allow students to practice on “lifelike” mannequins.

The simulators can produce heart and lung sounds and are able to cry, scream and moan.

This allows students to practice in a safe and controlled environment and helps to ensure that they are well prepared when they go into clinical practice.

Among other things students are able to practice urinary catheterisation, draining of gastric fluids, IV lines, injections and intubations.

Six staff members participated in the recent training session.

“We are proud of the staff of the Department of Nursing who are taking a lead in preparing themselves for quality teaching and learning of our undergraduate students on the Bellville campus. Lecturers are actively involved in teaching and very involved in Work Integrated Learning and the accompaniment of students in the skill laboratory,” said Prof Karien Jooste, Head of the Department.

Security in Service

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Newly appointed Director of Risk and Protection Services Gavin Solomons has quickly become a familiar sight around CPUT Campuses.

Solomons has visited all the CPUT campuses but is basing himself in Bellville for the moment to do his own long term assessment of needs and shortcoming, working alongside campus protection officers as they control access to that campus.

Though he started during recess, Solomons was thrown in on the deep end when he had to make a presentation to protection services employees in only his first week.

He used it as an opportunity to ask them how they want to be perceived and what their own goals were for campus protection services.

He sees this as his starting point as he reviews standard operating procedures dealing with everything from campus evacuation plans to guidelines for bringing more women into the campus protection services’ management structures.

“The whole idea is to make a better CPUT,” said Solomons.

His first job was as a security guard so he has insight into what it takes to guard a building in the dark or be the one running towards the loud bang.

Solomons took up this particular CPUT job because he relishes the challenge of changing how people view the institution, seeing it as so much more than just making sure campus protection officers are posted at optimal vantage points.

“It is to minimise risk and liability against the university. It’s not just guarding the property and buildings, but the brand. That is what risk assessment is and if we work here we are all brand ambassadors of CPUT,” said Solomons.

He comes to CPUT from Cape Town City’s Traffic Services where he managed traffic enforcement and flow management. He had originally started in law enforcement in 1990.

Solomons experienced the #FeesMustFall protests first hand as a student since he completed his Masters degree in public management at CPUT in 2017.

He graduated with a thesis entitled ‘Measuring the Performance of the Integrated Development Plan in a selected Metropolitan council in the Western Cape, South Africa’ and has already started planning his PhD studies working out a universal code of conduct for public servants.

Now that he is working at CPUT though Solomons is considering using what he learns on the job as possible research material, maybe even working out a model for campus protection services that would serve as a blueprint for other South African universities.

Written by Theresa Smith

Students encouraged to be professional

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CPUT Accounting Society recently hosted an event entitled Legacy Creators on District Six Campus to remind students of the importance of joining a professional body.

Dean of Business and Management Sciences, Prof Paul Green, encouraged students to look at ways to  expand their marketability by joining professional bodies, confirming his membership of  two of the professional bodies who presented later that day.

“It’s important for the university to interact with industry and professional bodies as we want to produce employable graduates,” said Green.

“We firmly value your input and the interaction,” he told the presenters who represented their professional bodies. “Graduates should have a better chance to be employable.”

Sizwe Nyenyiso from the Institute of Internal Auditing said joining the Institute entitles a student or qualified auditor to professional recognition, globally recognised certificates, on-the-job training and professional advice and guidance.

Mbali Mncwabe, Business Development Manager at Accounting Technicians South Africa (ATSA), a subsidiary of the SA Institute of Chartered Accountants, said ATSA is a leading, trusted professional body dedicated to the education and development of Accounting Technicians.

“We develop and empower skilled Accounting Technicians. They play a key support role to CAs,” she said. Other membership benefits include lifelong learning through the institute’s certification programmes as well as networking and mentorship programmes.

Heather Bangwayo, Education Manager at Chartered Institute of Management Accountant (CGMA)s, said their Institute helps people and businesses to succeed using the CGMA Competency Framework by imparting technical, business, leadership and people skills.

Space science launches CPUT into Africa

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Representatives of the Pan African University recently visited CPUT to check out the newest addition to the PAU.

A post-graduate training and research network of university nodes in five regions, supported by the African Union, the PAU was officially launched in 2011. It aims to provide opportunities for advanced graduate training and postgraduate research to high-performing African students.

Prof Tsige Gebre-Mariam, of the School of Pharmacy at the Addis Ababa University in Ethiopia, and PAU programme assistant Heromen Asefa Fetale visited CPUT on a fact-finding mission. They were investigating our research policies, graduate programmes and procedures around publications as we become the southern African university institute of the PAU.

The universities which house institutions centred on different science research focus areas are deliberately spread across north, west, east, central and southern Africa and each is selected on the basis of excellence displayed in a particular science programme. CPUT’s Space Programme was what won us the opportunity to be the coordinator of the PAU Space Sciences Programme.

The other institutes which make up the PAU are:

  • PAU Institute for Water and Energy Sciences (including Climate Change) situated at the Abou Bekr Bekaid University of Tlemcen, Algeria.
  • PAU Institute for Life and Earth Sciences (including Health and Agriculture) at the University of Ibadan, Nigeria.
  • PAU Institute for Governance, Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Yaoundé, Cameroon.
  • PAU Institute for Basic Sciences, Technology and Innovation at the Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology in Nairobi, Kenya.

Gebre-Mariam is drawing on his experience working on research policies when he helped to found the Academy of Sciences (a Pan African organisation headquartered in Kenya which aims to drive sustainable development in Africa through science, technology and innovation).

“The idea is to have a centre of excellence in each geographic location, for the knowledge it diffuses inwards,” explained Gebre-Mariam.

The various institutes are aimed at post graduate students.

“At any given time 70% of the students studying in the programme should come from countries other than the host country. Staff as well,” said Gebre-Mariam.

Written by Theresa Smith

Futuristic exhibition bags Open Day awards

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The Media Department’s futuristic exhibition at CPUT’s annual Open Day scooped two of the four trophies during an awards ceremony where the best stalls were announced.

The department’s winning exhibition was themed future creatives and won the Most Informative and Best Team Spirit categories.

Their exhibition included a set and stage, a green room, cameras, crew and a producer, which gave visitors the impression that they were part of a live TV studio production.

The department consists of the Public Relations, Journalism, Film & Video and Photography programmes.

Lecturer Ayesha Toyer said the Public Relations Programme was responsible for organising the exhibition.

“This exhibition is organised by our first year Public Relations & Communications students as part of a Work-Integrated Learning initiative. The project assesses outcomes like project management, budgeting, sponsorship, fundraising, planning, marketing, promotion and advertising and event management to name a few,” said Toyer,

“Students are assessed on their ability to successfully produce and manage their exhibition stall, as well as promote the four programmes within the department and, in so doing, recruit potential students. They raised over R70 000 in the form of sponsorship and fundraising to stage their exhibition.”

The Department of Medical Imaging and Therapeutic Sciences won the Best Marketing Concept award while the Food Technology Centre won the award for the Best Faculty Experience.