school email

The school email accounts are very different here. My inbox was full after about 12 messages, and because I've exceeded my allowed disk space, it won't let me forward the emails to another account. I never thought I would miss oncourse, but it gets a bit cumbersome to have the professor email us every powerpoint. The content of my official university emails is also quite different from what I get at IU. Here are some interesting samples from Friday and today.

"The pressure of water supplied by Msunduzi Municipality is currently below normal due to reactive maintenance in Scottsville. This in turn adversely affects the reticulation within buildings especially in Golf Rd. Subsequently there is difficulty in New Arts building to provide water to basins & toilets.

We have brought this to the attention of the Water Section of the municipality & await their positive response."

"The CAPRISA study of tenofovir gel, at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, provided the first evidence that an antiretroviral drug used in a gel form can reduce sexually transmitted HIV and herpes in women.

This finding has been hailed as one of the Top 10 Scientific Breakthroughs of 2010 by the journal Science. The journal, Nature, also lauded the research finding and listed it among their top science news for 2010. 

This week, the eminent medical journal, Lancet has announced that the CAPRISA research paper was voted a close second as the Lancet paper of the year for 2010."

VICE-CHANCELLOR’S COMMUNIQUÉ
[after a JFK quote about doing hard things...]

"Seven years ago the University of KwaZulu‐Natal (UKZN) took on a similar challenge. Rather than bemoan what was described at the time as the impossible task or a task doomed to failure of merging two very different institutions, the founders of this institution committed UKZN to becoming internationally recognised as the premier institution of African scholarship.

A ridiculous endeavour many claimed at the time. There is no such thing as African scholarship. It was said that UKZN must continue the role of the old University of Natal, in other words a colonial teaching institution forever servile to the Oxbridge tradition. Others preferred the dysfunctional model of the apartheid institution that was the University of Durban....

There are unfortunately always some who fight change and in UKZN’s case these naysayers unfortunately have friends in the newsrooms of some of South Africa’s press. The result is the crony journalism that has appeared on the pages of the Mail and Guardian of late. Thus one finds an absence of reasoned analysis and a disrespect for the truth and in its place a campaign of propaganda and personal attacks.

The Mail and Guardian has in recent weeks run a series of articles accusing UKZN and its

Vice-Chancellor of suppressing a report that they allege makes adverse findings against the university. This is proof, or so it is suggested, that academic freedom has been replaced at UKZN by “authoritarian corporate” dominance manifesting in the cult of the Vice-Chancellor....."

"Some students have embarked on protest action at UKZN's Edgewood campus. Protesting students have gathered at the main gate of the campus preventing staff and students from entering the campus. Students have raised various issues and some of the concerns are over the meal allowances and the administering of the Funza Lushaka bursary scheme.

Reports from Risk Management state that students began pelting bystanders with various items and the South African Police Service (SAPS) was called in to control the situation. Some students were injured during the fracas and are receiving medical attention.

UKZN is aware of the financial challenges facing many students and will make every attempt to assist students wherever possible."

(This isn't on my campus, but a professor said today that it's likely to spread.)