Over the past week the State of Nebraska in the United States of America (USA) has been engulfed in wide spread protest action over its highest courts’ anticipated appeal judgment. This decision will, once in effect, overturn its 1973 landmark judgment affording women the right to choose to legally terminate pregnancies. 

North-West University (NWU) academic and researcher Itumeleng Dinku says South Africa’s Choice on Termination of Pregnancy (CTOP) Act of 1996 was a monumental step towards in protecting the right to reproductive autonomy.

On 4 May 2022 a delegation from the Sasol Foundation visited the subject group Chemistry on the North-West University’s (NWU’s) Mahikeng Campus.

President Cyril Ramaphosa recently signed into effect three anti gender-based violence bills that will afford victims more protection.

These amendments will, among other things, allow victims to apply for protection orders online without having to appear in court, and will require all sexual offenders to be placed on a national registry.

The Criminal and Related Matters Amendment Bill, Criminal Law (Sexual Offences and Related Matters) Amendment Bill, and Domestic Violence Amendment Bill were all signed into law.

Ontiretse Motingwa

North-West University (NWU) Prof Olubukola Oluranti Babalola recently shared her expertise by editing the book, Food Security and Safety: African Perspectives, published by Springer, Cham.

The acting vice-chancellor of the North-West University (NWU), Prof Linda du Plessis, clearly sets the example after she was awarded her second doctorate in 2020, and has also been praised for the quality of her study by two international academic institutions and associations.

It was love at first sight. Boy meets campus. In 2019, Franco van Dijk visited the North-West University (NWU) campus in Potchefstroom as part of a tour by his school choir.

“We saw a lot of the campus – it almost felt like an open day. I really liked what I saw and decided that this was where I wanted to go,” says Franco, who matriculated from the Ligbron Academy of Technology.  

Franco, who was born in Bethal, Mpumalanga, will be turning 19 in May and is enrolled in his first year of working towards a degree in Electromechanical Engineering.

For this young woman entrepreneurship is a way of life. North-West University (NWU) master’s student in chemistry, Paula Maseko, recently started her own business by producing and selling haircare products.

Paula, who hails from Lonelypark in Mahikeng, started her business in 2020 in her mother’s garage. With a few pots, bowls, a hand blender and a two-plate stove, Buhle Bomqhele hair cream and growth oil were born.

Academia’s “best kept secret” is rising like a phoenix after the pandemic. The prestigious North-West University (NWU) Business School held a Brag & Brand function in Potchefstroom on Monday, 26 April that was attended by lecturers, staff and alumni.

Prof Linda du Plessis, acting vice-chancellor of the NWU, welcomed guests and said “a good school should have legitimacy”. She boasted that the NWU Business School had achieved accreditation for another five years from the Association of MBAs.

The North-West University (NWU) continues to shine in global rankings. In the latest rankings, the Center for World University Rankings (CWUR) placed the NWU in the top 4,5% of universities in their 2022/2023 edition of the Global 2000 list. This is an improvement from being in the top 4,7% in last year’s ranking.

This outstanding achievement was published on 25 April on the cwur.org website. The NWU was ranked according to academic performance among 19 788 universities worldwide.

Jacques Beukes of the MUST Deep Learning research group at the Faculty of Engineering is the 2021 winner of a North-West University (NWU) Vice-Chancellor’s Medal for his dissertation “Interpretability of deep neural networks for SYM-H prediction”. Eight vice-chancellor’s medals are awarded annually to the best master’s-degree students at the NWU. Jacques was awarded the medal for Engineering.