HIV/AIDS Unit and commerce faculty

The Faculty of Commerce and the UCT HIV/AIDS Unit are teaming up for the second year to incorporate HIV/AIDS-related issues in the first-year commerce course, Thinking about Business. The partnership works to meet one of the objectives of the HIV/AIDS Unit, which is to assimilate teaching of the virus into the various curricula. While many initiatives on HIV/AIDS focus on the personal application, the students are asked to engage with the impact of the epidemic at a professional level.

The course includes a review of workplace policies and programmes and also looks at the complexities of marketing HIV/AIDS messages in the workplace and beyond. Students will also benefit from a lecture on the impact of HIV/AIDS in the South African context.

Director of the HIV/AIDS Unit Cal Volks said: "We seek to graduate students who are 'HIV literate' at both a personal and professional level."

Course convenor Jacque Rousseau added: "This is a professional reality in South Africa, but we also hope the knowledge will encourage students to engage with the epidemic in empowering ways."

Both the commerce faculty and the HIV/AIDS Unit hope the programme will encourage and serve as a model for other faculties interested in incorporating HIV/AIDS material into their curricula. If you are interested, please contact the HIV/AIDS Unit's Laura Templeton at ltemple@protem.uct.ac.za.

Seminar Series

The Centre for Higher Education (CHED) and the School of Education have introduced a series of seminars on Higher Education Studies: Policy and Practice, aiming to stimulate research, policy development and scholarly work in this area.

Maurice Kogan from Brunel University in the United Kingdom will be presenting the next seminar, which is on Modes of Knowledge and Patterns of Power.

The paper attempts to identify the extent to which modes of knowledge can be associated with different patterns of and assumptions about power.

The presentation will be held from 12h40 until 14h00 at B114 in the Beattie Building on upper campus on Friday, March 12.