Fort Hare wins big at Mace Excellence Awards for the second year running

The University of Fort Hare (UFH) retained its position as the Eastern Cape’s top-performing institution in marketing and communication after winning the highest number of Mace Excellence Awards in the province for a second year in a row.

Marketing Advancement and Communication in Education (Mace) is the association that represents marketing and communication practitioners in the higher education sector.   It hosted its annual awards ceremony recently in Greenpoint, Cape Town.

UFH stepped away with eight awards in total. The university received seven awards for student recruitment, multi-day events and functions, stakeholder relations and publication design.

It was also the recipient of the prestigious Mace Research Award for stakeholder relations campaigns, having received the highest score out of the 153 winning entries submitted by 17 SA universities.

The university won several awards for: 

• Wamkelekile Fresher — the 2023 bold and spirited first-year orientation programme (student affairs); 
• The development of a special publication to assist first-time students cope with the fears and anxieties encountered when transitioning from high school to varsity life (student affairs/student counselling unit); 
• The 2022 UFH staff indaba and appreciation event (office of the vice-chancellor); 
• The undergraduate student recruitment campaign for the 2023 academic year (undertaken on behalf of the university’s six faculties and the office of the registrar); and
• An institutional stakeholder engagement programme conceptualised by the institutional advancement for local government that involved pro bono skills training to empower proportional representation and ward councillors in the Raymond Mhlaba municipality (office of the vice-chancellor and Fort Hare Solutions).

“We are grateful for and humbled by the recognition. We extend our congratulations to all other winning institutions,” says JP Roodt, UFH director of marketing and communications. 

“The awards are important for us to benchmark our growth, development and contribution to the university’s renewal programme, and to measure and evaluate the value creation by the institution for constituents in its stakeholder universe.”

Case study entries evaluated by Mace in various categories need to demonstrate excellence and rigid academic standards in planning, delivery, measurement and evaluation.

Entries are evaluated and moderated by seasoned professionals in higher education, government and the private sector’s marketing and communication sectors.

In September, UFH was named one of the coolest university brands by the Sunday Times GenNext survey that unveiled the most admired SA brands across 70 categories, including institutions of higher learning. 

Institutions of higher learning in the brand survey that UFH surpassed in ranking position included Unisa, North-West University and Sol Plaatje University.

The overall top five coolest brands were (1) Univen, (2) Yale University, (3) Stanford University, (4) Oxford and (5) UFH.

Researchers conducted visits to 98 schools to survey tweens (eight to 12 years) and teens (13 to 18 years), and other engagements took place to survey young professionals (25 to 30 years).

The Northern Cape was excluded from visits due to sparse distribution of schools.

With 5,900 young people being surveyed, the Sunday Times GenNext survey had a statistically representative sample of SA youth.

The survey was audited by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC).

This article was sponsored by the University of Fort Hare.