Humanities Alumni with the Edge
Ugandan journalist a jolly good Elizabeth Neuffer Fellow
The International Women’s Media Foundation (IWMF) selected Ugandan journalist, Jackee Budesta Batanda (MA (Forced Migration Studies) 2008) as the 2011-2012 Elizabeth Neuffer Fellow.
A Global Press Institute reporter, Batanda, 31, has reported on acid attacks on women as ‘revenge crimes’ and the murder of albinos. Amidst brutal crackdowns on journalists covering anti-government protests, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni has denounced local and international media outlets as “enemies”. This environment prompted Batanda’s work in “closing media spaces in African nations” at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Centre for International Studies, where she will study.
The Fellowship commemorates the late Boston Globe correspondent, Elizabeth Neuffer, who died in Iraq in May 2003, and aims to promote international understanding of human rights and social justice, and to develop the skills of female journalists.
Lessons from women mineworkers win alumna labour media award
Working underground in a mine to investigate the circumstances under which women mineworkers labour has earned Asanda Benya (BA 2007, BA Hons 2008, MA (Industrial Sociology) 2009) an award for the Best Journal Article in the 2010 Labour Media Awards.
Benya converted her Masters’ dissertation into an article entitled, If You Don’t Hear The Bell You Are Mince – a firsthand account of the dangers of working 1 500m underground, and how missing warning signals could prove fatal.
The article recounts Benya’s two months underground at Rustenburg platinum mine as a general worker shovelling ore, cleaning drains and walkways and installing ventilation pipes, compressed air pipes and railway lines during seven-hour shifts.
Her research unearthed important issues relating to employment conditions, labour policy, and the impact of work on the personal lives of female mineworkers.
Alumna game for first digital design lecture post
The Digital Arts department in the School of Arts appointed Hanli Geyser (BA (FA) 2003, MA (History of Art) 2009) as the first Game Design lecturer in Digital Arts, in March 2011.
An avid gamer and academic researcher into popular culture, Geyser will develop the Games Design courses that the department will launch in 2012 in collaboration with the School of Electrical Engineering.
Geyser’s interest in ludology – the discipline of studying games, their design, their players and the role they play in society and culture – focuses on the conjunction between visual arts and narrative texts found in video games, hypertext fiction, comic books and film.
Geyser enjoys many commercial titles (some favourites include The Witcher, Fall Out, Machinarium, and Braid) but also explores other independent games as a form of artistic expression.
SA’s only black woman with speech therapy-audiology doctorate hears the call of transformation
When Dr Katijah Khoza-Shangase, 35, achieved her doctorate in 2008, she was then – and remains today – the first and only black African graduate in South Africa to receive a PhD in Speech Therapy and Audiology.
The South African Audiologists’ Association awarded her for the Best Contribution to Audiology research in 2009.
A nominee for the 2010 Best Emerging Young Woman Researcher in the Social Sciences/Humanities Women in Science Awards, Khoza-Shangase (BA (Speech & Hearing Therapy) 1997, MA (Audiology) 2001, PhD (Speech Therapy & Audiology) 2008) joined Wits in March 2006 and rose rapidly to senior lecturer then Head of Department in January 2010.
She and three colleagues represented Wits in the Carnegie Corporation Transformation Programme in November 2009.
Khoza-Shangase is outspoken about the necessity for demographic and curriculum transformation in her field, which is relatively unknown in the African community. She aims to develop a curriculum that will enable better service delivery to a multilingual South African society and the significant language barrier in the field motivates her to recruit more black graduates.
Her research interest in the long-term effects of antiretroviral therapy on the audio-logical functions of HIV-positive patients prompted the development of a research niche – ‘pharmaco-audiology’ – that explores the effects of medication on hearing.
‘Lady Rugga’ Witsie to report on Rugby World Cup
SuperSport named Elma Smit (BA Hons 2009) as its first female rugby presenter, ‘Lady Rugga’, on 6 June 2011. ‘Lady Rugga’ will report on the Rugby World Cup in New Zealand in September.
Smit, 25, who previously reported on the Varsity Shield intervarsity rugby tournament, was one of fifteen finalists in a nationwide competition judged by Springbok rugby legendNaas Botha and media personalities Elana Afrika, Darren Scott and Ashley Hayden.
Smit was required to interview Blue Bulls centre, Wynand Olivier in a post-match scenario. She impressed the judges with both her passion for rugby and her understanding of the nuances of the game when she addressed the issue of neck clamping, which Olivier had previously experienced.
Starring Dame Janet Suzman...
Queen Elizabeth II recently ordained South African stage and film actor Janet Suzman (BA) as Dame, the female equivalent of a Knight. Suzman is now Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire for her services to drama. In celebration of her new title, the Fugard Theatre in Cape Town will screen a retrospective of her films in August and they are expecting Dame Suzman to attend in person. Films to be screened include Nicholas and Alexandra (Academy Award nomination for Best Actress); A Dry White Season (opposite Marlon Brando); Nuns on the Run; Priest of Love (with Sir Ian Mckellen and Ava Gardner); and A Day in the Death of Joe Egg (opposite Alan Bates). Suzman moved from Johannesburg to London in 1959 and began her stage career starring in Billy Liar in 1962. She was a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company and played most of Shakespeare’s female lead roles. Her aunt, Helen Suzman (BCom, honorary LLD 1973) was ordained as a Dame in 1989.
Wits Numeracy Chair adds up to improved mathematics results
Professor Hamsa (Venkat) Venkatakrishnan holds the South African Numeracy Chair at Wits, in which capacity she oversees the Wits Maths Connect-Primary Project, a five-year venture that began in 2011, and which supports the development of numeracy/mathematics teaching, learning and performance in ten disadvantaged primary schools in eastern Johannesburg. The potential implementation of the intervention in a greater number of schools is the broader aim of the project. The focus in the first two years is on building number sense through working with teachers and learners in the Foundation Phase.
Venkat has over 20 years’ experience in teaching and lecturing in the field of mathematics education in the UK and South Africa. She previously worked in the field of mathematical literacy and primary mathematics teaching and learning. Previously based in London, Venkat worked as a high school mathematics teacher before moving into teacher education at the Institute of Education. She researched mathematics education at King’s College, where she obtained a PhD and won the British Educational Research Association dissertation award for her contribution to research in education, in 2004.