A research team from the School of Mechanical Engineering has successfully designed and fired a hybrid rocket test motor. This represents a milestone in the team’s quest to develop a South African sounding rocket for use by the scientific community.

The recent test-firing of the hybrid rocket motor by the School’s Aerospace Systems Research Group (ASReG) means the team is on track towards achieving their goal of flying a hybrid-powered rocket to an altitude of 10 km by the end of next year.  The team hopes to be able to test their rocket at the Overberg Test Range in the Western Cape, before proceeding with the design of a high-altitude variant. 

Africa is a continent plagued with contradictions – very rich on the one hand, in terms of mineral resources, but also very poor in terms of food insecurity and poverty.  These were the sentiments expressed by the Premier of KwaZulu-Natal and UKZN Chancellor, Dr Zweli Mkhize in his opening address at a Vulnerability Assessment and Analysis (VAA) workshop hosted by UKZN’s African Centre for Food Security (ACFS). 

Delegates from five partner universities in the SADC region converged on UKZN’s Pietermaritzburg campus to work together on building a critical mass of African expertise in the area of vulnerability assessment, analysis and advocacy relating to food insecurity.  Members from UKZN’s School of Agricultural Sciences and Agribusiness and from Microbiology also participated in the discussions. The primary goal of the workshop was to identify and co-ordinate VAA training and to produce a regional curriculum that would be accessible to people in the SADC member states. 

UKZN’s Centre for Critical Research on Race and Identity (ccrri) hosted a seminar and the launch of Paying for Politics: Party Funding and Political Change in South Africa and the Global South, a book exploring the relationship between money and politics, on October 26. The research for the book was funded by the Konrad Adenauer Foundation.

Two contributors to the book, Mr Sam Sole, an investigative journalist for the Mail and Guardian and Professor Anthony Butler from Political Studies at the University of the Witwatersrand spoke at the seminar. The Deputy Mayor of the eThekwini Municipality, Mr Logie Naidoo was also present.

Key issues in the financing of South African political parties, including one-party dominance, party-controlled businesses, corruption, and public financing, are explored in the book by leading analysts, academics and journalists. “The book will be of interest to all those who care for the future of South Africa’s democracy,” say the authors.

Top performing students for 2009 and 2010 were honoured at an awards ceremony hosted by the School of Accounting, in partnership with the South African Institute of Chartered Accountants (SAICA).

The Chair of the Eastern Region of SAICA, Mr Mdu Zakwe, told students that there are many challenges ahead of them and that there is a shortage of chartered accountants in South Africa. He added that South Africa needs skills and that is why it is important for universities to stay relevant and to offer courses that challenge students.

Mr Zakwe noted that many UKZN graduates are working in Johannesburg making a difference in the country’s economy. He shared his experiences of studying at the University and how he always made sure he stayed ahead and worked hard.

Due to complete his BSc degree in Chemical Engineering, Mr Mark Williams-Wynn was recently selected by the Institution of Chemical Engineering (IChemE) as one of four students internationally to attend the Indian Institute of Chemical Engineering (IIChE)’s S-CHEMCON 2010 congress in Guntur, India. 

Mr Williams-Wynn’s visit to India forms part of the IChemE/IIChE Exchange Programme which has been created to provide students with the opportunity to travel to a foreign country and experience a different culture.  More importantly, it is designed to expose students to the ways in which chemical engineering is viewed and understood in other countries. 

S-CHEMCON is an annual conference organised by students from various Indian institutions and aims to update the chemical engineering fraternity the latest trends and technologies.  This year’s conference was held at the Rayapati Venkata Ranga Rao and Jagarlamudi Chandramouli (RF & JC) College of Engineering.  Mr Williams-Wynn was joined at the conference by Scottish, Australian and New Zealand students who formed the rest of the contingent selected from outside India. 

UKZN Librarians introduced ResearchSpace, the University's online institutional repository, to interested academics at the November Senate meeting on the Westville campus. ResearchSpace is a open source database which contains the fulltext digital copies of UKZN theses and dissertations.

Theses from current masters and doctoral graduates are added to the database as soon as they are received by the Library. There are 1 582 theses online, and more are being added every day.

An extensive project is underway to digitize all past theses, back to the very early days of the University. Teams at each of the campus libraries are “withdrawing” print copies of theses from the former Universities of Durban-Westville and Natal, working backwards in time, scanning them and loading the digital copies onto the repository. The project is expected to take about two years to complete. UKZN is the first university in South Africa to embark on a complete retrospective theses digitization project of this nature.

UKZN hosted the 25^th Neuroscience School in Africa on the Westville campus from October 24-28.

Every year, global neuroscience bodies such as the International Brain Research Organization (IBRO) and the International Society for Neuroscience (ISN) fund neuroscience schools in Africa. This year the programme was organised by the South African Neuroscience Society (SANS).

UKZN’s Professor Willie Daniels, the outgoing South African Neurosciences Society (SANS) Chair,  together with his local SANS organising committee from the University’s Human Physiology (Dr Musa Mabandla); Therapeutics and Medicines Management (Dr Strini Naidoo); SUME, the Curriculum co-ordinating Facility for Undergraduate Medical Education at the Nelson R Mandela School of Medicine, (Dr Kogie Moodley); and Anatomy (Mr Salem Kharwa) departments, brought together local and international scientists to provide a four-day programme of intense neuro-biology, neuro-physiology, and neuro-anatomy practical workshops and neuroscience research.

UKZN’s Students in Free Enterprise (SIFE) is overjoyed by its ever-growing list of achievements.

In line with the group’s objective – to help improve people’s lives through entrepreneurial empowerment and upliftment by conducting various projects to address the current socio-economic challenges facing South Africa – SIFE-UKZN’s activism has advanced the students to the final stage of the 13^th Mayoral Awards 2010, to be held at the Inkosi Albert Luthuli  International Convention Centre.

The annual Mayoral Awards recognise eThekwini citizens who have excelled in various categories, including Biodiversity, Community Development, Crime Prevention, a Clean Environment, Wealth and Job Creation, Tourism, and Achiever. SIFE-UKZN was amongst the four finalists out of 136 nominees for this award.

The “existential crisis” which Departments of French in South African universities have been going through over the past 10 years has raised a number of questions regarding the role and function of teaching, learning and speaking French in South Africa today, as well as the place learning and appropriate teaching of languages should take in education and training.

The special issue No 40 of French Studies in Southern Africa (2010) sums up, and at the same time heralds in, a new phase in the scientific exploration of issues related to French in this country and its role in the new social and educational democratic dispensation. The study also includes an examination of the ways in which universities are redefining their role in South Africa, a phenomenon not dissimilar to that found in a number of countries around the world.

The School of Management is hosting Ms Tina Obermeit, a visiting academic from Chemnitz University of Technology in Germany for three months.

Ms Obermeit is the second visiting academic from this University in five years. She is conducting research on intercultural organisations.  Her decision to come to UKZN was made during the third American-African-European Summer School visit hosted by UKZN’s School of Management, when she visited Durban together with a colleague and 12 students from her university.

With the help of the School of Management, especially Professor Kantilal Bhowan, Ms Malindi Kunene and Mr Taahir Vajeth, plans were made for a three-month stay to work on her PhD. While at UKZN, she also hopes to improve her English and to gain exposure to different cultures.

The School of Mechanical Engineering’s annual Open Day, held on October 29 on UKZN’s Howard College campus, was greeted with a sigh of relief by final-year mechanical engineering students.  Representing the culmination of many months of intense design work, the day showcased their Design and Research Projects which form a significant part of their final assessment.

Fourteen different projects, ranging from robots and rockets to solar pumping systems and wastewater treatment plants, were on display for evaluators, sponsors, parents and the general public.  Testing the students’ ability to be design engineers once they graduate, the projects are produced over a nine-month period by groups comprising three or four students.  They are evaluated according to strict criteria set by the Engineering Council of South Africa which include: problem solving, application of scientific and engineering knowledge, engineering design, teamwork and professional and technical communication.