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UFS achieves top honours at the 2023 MACE Excellence Awards ceremony

05 December 2023 Photo Francois van Vuuren

MACE Awards Winners 2023 — From left are: Belinda Janeke, Head: Career Services; Barend Nagel, Multimedia Specialist, Department of Communication and Marketing; Moeketsi Mogotsi, Social Media Specialist, Department of Communication and Marketing; Lacea Loader, Senior Director: Department of Communication and Marketing; Tobias van den Bergh, Counselling Psychologist, Student Counselling and Development; Mojalefa Rabolinyane, Assistant Officer, Student Counselling and Development; Burneline Kaars, Head: Leadership, Organisational Development and Employee Well-being; Lizet Holtzhausen, Officer, Leadership, Organisational Development and Employee Well-being; Marieta Landman, Senior Officer, Department of Student Recruitment Services; and Sandile Ncedani, Senior Officer, Department of Student Recruitment Services.

On 16 November 2023, five departments at the University of the Free State made a big splash at the national association for Marketing, Advancement, and Communication in Education (MACE) 2023 Excellence Awards.

Collectively, the UFS won 11 awards, including the sought-after Chairperson’s Award of Excellence, awarded to a single entry that embodies true excellence in marketing, advancement, or communication. In other words, the overall winner across all divisions and categories.

Celebrating the best in marketing, advancement, and communication

Hosted annually, the MACE Excellence Awards recognise and celebrate the excellence of specialists and practitioners in marketing, advancement, and communication in the higher-education sector. MACE plays a vital role in adding value to practitioners through high-quality development programmes, facilitating networking partnerships and transformation, as well as promoting best practices among these professions at member institutions.

The MACE National Conference held on the Belville Campus of the University of the Western Cape from 15 to 16 November 2023, preceded the glamorous awards function. The theme for the conference was ‘Higher education institutions in a world of artificial intelligence’. After two informative days, delegates attended the awards function, where their work and skills were recognised.

The winner takes it all

The UFS Leadership, Organisational Development, and Employee Well-Being won the Chairperson’s Award for its Women’s Day Breakfast. This memorable event also received a platinum award. Silver awards were raked in by Student Counselling and Development (DoDay Mental Health Campaign), Career Services (Careers Podcast Series), Student Recruitment Services (Motion Graphics Video), and the Department of Communication and Marketing (DCM) won three silver awards for its Social Media Squad project, the Vision 130 video, and the Dr Maye Musk Honorary Doctorate Graduation Ceremony. Bronze awards were given to DCM for the Vision 130 Launch and Youth Month, and the Kovsie Connect Virtual Experience won Student Recruitment Services its second award of the evening.

Excellence in everything we do

Lacea Loader, Senior Director: Communication and Marketing and Coordinator of the MACE Excellence Awards, says the recognition affirms the high level of communication generated by the institution. “I am immensely proud of the national recognition from our peers for the quality and innovative work we do. This year in particular, different departments entered the awards programme, which is exemplary of the integration and synergy of the work done in the different departments,” she says.

News Archive

UFS tightens links with Netherlands’ Dronten University

2007-08-10

The University of the Free State (UFS) and CAH Dronten Professional Agricultural University, the Netherlands are expanding and strengthening the relationship between the two institutions. The focus of the cooperation will initially be within the Departments of Agricultural Economics and Animal, Wildlife and Grassland Sciences.

Prof. Herman van Schalkwyk, Dean of the Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences, visited Dronten recently to investigate the possibility and feasibility of a more formal linkage between the two institutions. That was followed by a visit from Dr Will Beckering to the UFS where a letter of undertaking was signed, paving the way for the establishment of a memorandum of understanding and implementation agreements.

Both the institutions share an interest in the training of emerging farmers; the carrying out of an agricultural skills development project; short-term visits of staff for consultations and lecturing; formulating and implementing projects on capacity development to broaden access to professional education; exchange of students for study programmes, placement projects; curricular development, more especially the possibilities of developing a joint master’s degree programme; and identifying the possibilities of the use of e-learning in joint educational programmes.

Signing a letter of understanding, were, from the left, front: Dr Will Beckering from Dronten and Prof. Herman van Schalkwyk, back: Dr Aldo Stroebel (Head: Internationalisation) and Prof. Izak Groenewald (Director: Centre for Sustainable Agriculture).

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