Community Engagement Week at Rhodes University began last week Monday with the opening of the CE Exhibition by Dr Peter Clayton, Deputy Vice-chancellor for Research and Development.
Clayton welcomed the representatives of the different Rhodes departments, as well as community partners, and expressed the wish that those visiting the Exhibition would be informed and inspired by what they saw, and would contribute to community engagement as a growing facet of university life. He also took the opportunity to thank the office's director, Di Hornby, and her office, for organising the display and for the new sense of energy and opportunities that they were creating.
Community Engagement Week at Rhodes University began last week Monday with the opening of the CE Exhibition by Dr Peter Clayton, Deputy Vice-chancellor for Research and Development.
Clayton welcomed the representatives of the different Rhodes departments, as well as community partners, and expressed the wish that those visiting the Exhibition would be informed and inspired by what they saw, and would contribute to community engagement as a growing facet of university life. He also took the opportunity to thank the office's director, Di Hornby, and her office, for organising the display and for the new sense of energy and opportunities that they were creating.
The main aim of the exhibition, which ran for two days at Eden Grove, was to show the wide variety of community engagement activities taking place through a range of different departments and affiliated institutes, as well as to create a meeting place between Rhodes and community partners and provide new opportunities for collaboration and interaction.
Hornby stressed that the office was not the sole generator or originator of community engagement activities, but that it played a facilitative and supportive role.
As many as 20 community engagement initiatives were showcased, including the pharmacy faculty and the departments of journalism, computer science, philosophy and psychology.
The psychology department alone has five initiatives, including work on the Phelophepha Health Train and the Mark Hipper-Tower Hospital Art Project.
The education faculty's projects include Early Childhood Development, through the university's Centre for Social development; Intermediate Phase education through Postgraduate Certificate in Education and Advanced Certificate in Education students; work with Further Education and Training-phase English teachers through the Institute for Social and Economic Research and Environmental Education through the Environmental Learning Research Centre.
Colourful poster displays were complemented by other materials such as DVD and brochures, and showed the many ways in which community engagement can be enmeshed with teaching, learning and research.
