Rethinking your Degree
Confucius Institute Launch
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Summer School begins with Bits, Bites and Tweets
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UCT "alums" reflect on affirmative action
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Graduation continues its happy procession
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Xhosa course growing bigger
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Distinguished Teacher Awards
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Retreat energises PhD students
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National Benchmark Tests create a stir - and a small storm
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Please note the new URLs for the following CHED websites:
Higher & Adult Education Studies & Development Unit (HAESDU)
Language Development Group (LDG)
The UCT Confucius Institute was launched on 19 January 2010. The launch coincided with the visit from colleagues from our partner institute, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangdong Province. 
UCT's popular Summer School started with fanfare on 15 January, celebrating its 60th anniversary with Bits, Bites and Tweets, an exhibition of "living electronic artwork", co-created by Summer School students under the guidance of artist Gwen van Embden.
Former deputy vice-chancellor Professor Martin Hall, former vice-chancellors Njabulo S Ndebele and Dr Stuart Saunders, and a string of UCT scholars are among the contributors to the recently released The Next Twenty-five Years: Affirmative Action in Higher Education in the United States and South Africa. 
While much of the country took a day off on Wednesday, UCT's December 2009 graduations hardly took its foot off the gas. The Faculty of Commerce and the Faculty of Engineering & the Built Environment hosted its second ceremonies for the week on Wednesday, 16 December.
As Professor Mbulungeni Madiba greeted everyone and joked in isiXhosa, his students burst into laughter, with the braver responding in a rather broken language. As student Daniel Franco puts it, that served to break the ice and start conversations in isiXhosa, fulfilling the objective of the isiXhosa course for beginners, popularly known as masithethe isiXhosa.
They have their own takes on teaching, but the four lecturers named as the winners of the 2009 Distinguished Teacher Awards (DTA) have at least two things in common: they really like being in a classroom packed with students, and they have, according to the DTA committee, set the bar for teaching at UCT. We offer a glimpse into their teaching lives and philosophies. 
Doctoral students at UCT were armed, motivated and refocused at the annual PhD Residential Retreat Programme, hosted by the Centre for Higher Education Development (CHED) last week. The two-day event, funded by the AW Mellon Foundation and held at the Cape Manor Hotel in Sea Point, saw seasoned and up-and-coming researchers reflecting on the ups and downs of doctoral studies. 