Briefs

Black caucus meeting

Please note that there will be a black staff caucus meeting on Thursday, April 29, in the Senate Room in Bremner Building. The topic will be equity and redress. An agenda will be sent to members via the internal circular. For more information contact caucus convenor Chupe Serote on tel 650-5210.

Hospice Week

St Luke's Hospice invites you to celebrate Hospice Week with a performance of the internationally acclaimed production Wit at the Baxter on Wednesday, May 5, at 20h00. Tickets cost R60 per person and include snacks, tea, coffee and a glass of wine. A razor-sharp, multi-layered lesson in facing mortality, Wit has been described as a dazzling humane play that you will remember "'til your dying day". For bookings please contact Suzanne on tel 797-5335.

Have your say

The Multimedia Education Group at UCT would like to thank the 134 academic staff and 1 047 students who have so far completed the survey on access to computers and how ICTs are being used to support teaching and learning at UCT. The survey is part of the inter-institutional Information and Communication Technologies in Higher Education (HictE) research project, which is a collaboration between the five higher education institutions in the Western Cape. While this is a regional collaborative project, the results will inform UCT's strategic direction in the future. If you have not yet had your say about the problems and benefits of using computers for teaching and learning, then visit www.meg.uct.ac.za/survey to access the survey before April 30. For more information contact Cheryl Brown on 650-5035 or e-mail cbrown@ched.uct.ac.za

Rebuilding Zimbabwe

Geoff Hill, the southern Africa correspondent for the Sunday Times and author of Battle for Zimbabwe (Struik-New Holland Publishers), will be speaking at The Centre for the Book, Queen Victoria Street, on Wednesday, May 5, at 17h30. The South African Institute of International Affairs (SAIIA) Western Cape branch will be hosting Hill whose topic will be When freedom comes to Zimbabwe: Rebuilding a shattered nation. Hill grew up in Malawi, South Africa and Zimbabwe where he became fluent in the Shona language. He is also the Africa correspondent for The Washington Times. There is an entrance fee of R15 for non-SAIIA members. For more information, please contact the SAIIA on tel 797-1569 or e-mail mbridgman@iafrica.com. RSVP to 531-7715 for free transport on the Jammie Shuttle.

UCT Libraries now have two online databases that can be used to track down courses and academics by areas of expertise. The first, The World of Learning, covers 30 000 scholarly institutions worldwide, including galleries and smaller research foundations, as well as universities. The second database, CUDOS, focuses only on Commonwealth universities. CUDOS often lists funding opportunities too. You can gain access to the World of Learning without a password as long as you are on campus. To do this go to www.lib.uct.ac.za, click on the Databases link and find World of Learning alphabetically. The same steps work for the CUDOS database, except it requires a password, which is available from education librarian Amina Adams on tel 650-3703.

Credit union payouts

Campus Credit Union are calling on members working at UCT to collect their shares of payouts from Monday, April 26, between 12h30 and 13h30 in the post room. For more information, please contact David Wilson on 650-2905.

Thanks from Pitt

Prof Doug Pitt, dean of commerce, would like to express his heartfelt thanks to the many colleagues who supported him after his recent accident, which resulted in major surgery. He says, "The visits, gifts, cards and jokes were a major factor in boosting my morale and helping me along the road to recovery - they literally got me back on my feet. I am truly grateful for the friendship and care offered by so many."