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UFS wins top awards at the 2024 Mace Excellence Awards

05 December 2024 | Story Dr Cindé Greyling | Photo Kaleidoscope

MACE Winners 2024 — From left to right: Burneline Kaars (Head: Employee Wellness and Organisational Development), Dr WP Wahl (Student Life Director), Linda Greyling (Senior Officer: Special Projects, Student Recruitment Services), Gerben Van Niekerk (Senior Officer: Kovsie Support Services), Malia Maranyane (Senior Officer: Undergraduate Marketing, Student Recruitment Services), Nomonde Mbadi (Student Recruitment Services Director), and Susan Van Jaarsveld (Senior Director: Human Resources).

On 28 November 2024, the University of the Free State (UFS) did it again – reigned as champions at the annual Marketing, Advancement and Communication in Education (MACE) Excellence Awards and walking away with two of the top awards: the MACE Award for Outstanding Research and the Severus Cerff Award for Consistent Excellence.

KovsieX was named the overall winner of the MACE Award for Outstanding Research. This award is made to the entry with the highest score in research, clearly demonstrating how research has supported the strategic objectives of the institution and the project. KovsieX is a multiplatform approach designed to leverage the strengths of diverse media channels. This digitalisation aligns with Vision 130, leveraging emerging technologies to enhance teaching and learning quality and efficiency of non-academic support structures and systems.

The UFS’ entries were of such high quality that the university won the sought-after Severus Cerff Award for Consistent Excellence. This award is based on the number of entries entered by an institution and the number and level of those entries winning awards. The award is therefore made to the institution with the highest success ratio.

Furthermore, the UFS Matriculant of the Year event received a Silver Award – entries scoring 5.75 or higher earn a Silver Award, placing this event among some of the top achievers in the events category. Three UFS entries received Gold Awards and were the winners in their respective categories: KovsieChat (Digital Channels), 2024 Women’s Day Breakfast (Events), and KovsieX (Stakeholder Engagement Campaigns). This is a magnificent achievement for the UFS.

"Winning a MACE award at this early stage is proof that KovsieX is not just meeting national standards – it’s setting them. If we can achieve this level of excellence now, imagine how we’ll compete on the global stage when the project is fully realised,” says Gerben van Niekerk, Student Media Manager.

Lacea Loader, Senior Director: Communication and Marketing and Coordinator of the MACE Excellence Awards, explained that a record number of entries were received for the Excellence Awards this year. “We are ecstatic about the direction of communication at the UFS and that the university has been able to maintain the quality of its entries in recent years,” says Loader.

The MACE Excellence Awards takes place annually as part of the MACE National Conference, recognising and celebrating excellence and the achievements of specialists and practitioners in marketing, advancement, and communication in the higher-education sector. This year, the Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT) hosted the conference from 27 to 28 November 2024.

In 2023, the UFS won 11 awards, including the Chairperson’s Award of Excellence.

News Archive

New name and format for UFS Rag

2017-11-02

The community garden project will help individual student communities
to begin and maintain their own vegetable gardens to address food insecurity
within their own environment.
Photo: Pixabay

Get ready for celebrating with a cause at the University of the Free State (UFS). After an external review and internal consultation process, our “giving back” will get a fresh new look. Our RAG, as you know it, will have a new name and format going forward.

Innovative thinking will align the UFS Student Affairs, RAG Community Services (RCS), Community Engagement (CE), and Services Learning (SL) to deliver suitable contributions for current community needs. We will guide the alignment process with an integrated framework for learning and developmental outcomes. If the RCS, CE, SL, and Student Affairs align their specific programmes and activities to achieve the same developmental outcomes, we believe that the collective effect will be enhanced. You get further if you pull in the same direction, rather than various good-intentioned movements on different routes.

Stronger together An Institutional Committee for Civic and Social Responsibility (CSR) will act as the overarching structure for accountability, alignment, and advice to the RCS, CE and SL divisions. In a collective effort, four exciting programmes will take flight.

1 Schools project for first-year students Mentored by senior students, groups of first-year students will be assigned to, and participate in local school projects. Students will learn to solve problems and work together in small groups as they collaborate on a specific community project involving primary or secondary schools in the Mangaung region.

2 Community gardens This project will help individual student communities to begin and maintain their own vegetable gardens to address food insecurity within their own environment.

3 Eco-vehicle project for senior students The aim of the eco-vehicle project is to create an interdisciplinary experience. Undergraduate senior students from a Student Life College (SLC) can work together to build an eco-vehicle from waste material. The track day, along with creative pit stops, will take place on 16 February 2018, preceding the Community celebration of 17 February 2018.

4 Community celebration To foster good relationships between the UFS and the community, we aim to host an annual celebration that will be open to the broader Mangaung community. The celebrations will kick off on the morning of 17 February 2018 with a business relay and a showcase of the eco-vehicles. The festive day will conclude with an evening music concert.

We have yet to rename “RAG”, and while this creative process is brewing, you can look forward to paying it forward with value! Any suggestions with regard to a new name for our new process can be forwarded to scheepersk@ufs.ac.za

Name suggestions will be accepted until 30 November 2017.

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