UNIZULU’s CMD Team Wins at MACE

The common notion that denotes a picture being worth a thousand words was confirmed last night (Thursday, 30 November 2017) during the Marketing, Advancement and Communication in Education (MACE) Excellence Awards, when the University of Zululand’s (UNIZULU) Communications and Marketing Division (CMD) scooped an award for its excellence in news photography skills.

MACE is an annual conference which sees marketing, advancement and communication professionals working in the higher education sector convening to network, discuss topical issues and share best practices in the sector. This year’s event took at the University of Witwatersrand’s School of Governance, Johannesburg. The Excellence Awards ceremony took place at the classy Country Club Johannesburg, Auckland Park.

This is the second consecutive year that the University scooped this award (in recognition of outstanding performance among practitioners in higher, technical and vocational education and training in the skills photography category).

Named “The Culmination of a Journey”, the winning picture features Bongekile Gloria Mashaba, a UNIZULU then student who was being hooded on the graduation stage by the University’s Deputy Registrar, Ernest Doeseb. The entry was named “The Culmination of a Journey” as it depicts the emotion of relief that usually engulfs graduands as they descend the graduation stage after years of hard work and dedication. The picture was taken by Sphamandla Gumede, Communications Assistant within CMD during the 2017 May Graduation Ceremonies.

Sinegugu Ndlovu, UNIZULU Public Relations Manager, who was part of the team that attended the MACE Excellence Awards, was elated and proud for the University to have received the award. “As the Division of Communications and Marketing, we are extremely proud and elated to have been bestowed with this award. It is truly a reflection of the good work that we are doing as a Division and University. What’s even more exciting about this award is the fact that we are pitted against over 20 higher education institutions and we emerged victorious in the category without the use of a heavy budget or expensive equipment to capture the winning image. We had hoped for more awards, however, we will strive to do better next year,” she said.

-Naledi Hlefane

Pictured: The winning image named “The Culmination of a Journey”.