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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

Second OSM concert inspires Heidedal youth

2016-12-08

Sehle Mosole, left, and Jonandrea Pofadder back,
with the children from the ROC Foundation during the
second OSM community outreach in Heidedal, Bloemfontein.
Photo: Supplied

“The project is special because it is an event in the community, by the community.” This is what Gerda Pretorius, lecturer in the Odeion School of Music (OSM) at the University of the Fee State, said about the second music concert hosted by the OSM in Heidedal, Bloemfontein.

The concert, in collaboration with the Reach Our Community (ROC) Foundation on 26 November 2016, was a follow-up on the concept that was started last year. As part of the outcomes of the MUSE3706 module, the third-year Music Education students engage in a project in a specific environment. For this project the MUSE team, led by Pretorius and Anchen Froneman, collaborated with the ROC Foundation in Heidedal. Two third-year students in the OSM, Sehle Mosole and Jonandrea Pofadder, facilitated the event in 2016.

Long relationship between ROC and UFS

Since 2008, the UFS has successfully partnered with ROC through service-learning and community-engagement projects in which students from across all seven faculties participate. The foundation strives to address the challenges resulting from factors such as poverty, unemployment, HIV/Aids, single parenting, lack of guardianship, and physical and sexual abuse. In the Afterschool Care programme, the children engage in educational, cultural, and recreational activities.

Children who form part of the foundation’s Afterschool Care programme, showed their impressive music skills to their parents and guardians in attendance.

Spontaneous participation by community

“I was deeply touched by the spontaneous participation and appreciation of the community for art-related – in particular music and dance – events,” said Pretorius. A highlight was the community’s involvement in the event and the value it adds to the students’ organising skills.

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