Vice-Chancellors’ Excellence Awards 2021

Dear colleagues

The year 2021 has undoubtedly been another challenging one. It has been characterised by a myriad of difficulties, most brought about by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. This time has however also encouraged inventiveness, research rigour, voluntarism and community engagement which in turn has promoted greater cohesion, care and collaboration within the University of Cape Town (UCT) community and society at large.

Our vision is to unleash human potential to create a fair and just society and you, our staff, have continued to demonstrate your incredible potential. You have shown empathy and support to all those around you, whether it has been towards your family, friends, colleagues or strangers.

We hope we have throughout the year showed, through words and deeds, our recognition for all your efforts. The upcoming UCT Annual Awards provide an opportunity for us to further show our appreciation.

There is an appreciation from the Vice-Chancellors’ Excellence Awards committee that teamwork, collective action, collaboration and leadership have contributed towards the health and wellbeing of colleagues and ensured the sustainability of the university.

We therefore call on anyone who is aware of teams or individuals who have gone over and above the line of duty to make a difference in the lives of others through transformative change, to nominate them for the Vice-Chancellors’ Excellence Awards. Awards will be made in the three categories: global citizenship, service excellence and transformation.

We encourage all professional, administrative support and services (PASS) staff to apply or nominate colleagues for the Global Citizenship Award and the Service Excellence Award, while all staff at UCT involved in transformation work are invited to apply for or nominate colleagues for the Transformation Award.

A brief outline of each of the categories is as follows:

• Service Excellence celebrates and recognises outstanding service by staff, including activities, initiatives, practices and/or projects that have contributed to the delivery of exceptional or significantly improved services to UCT’s staff and students (an award for PASS staff).
• Global Citizenship recognises individuals or teams who have demonstrated excellence in living out the UCT mission through areas of service, the pursuit of knowledge, the dignity of the human being and contributions to the common good (an award for PASS staff).
• Transformation aligns with the strategic plan of the university and our vision for excellence, transformation and sustainability, and is aimed at recognising and encouraging staff to take an active role in driving institutional culture change (an award for all staff).

The deadline for submission is Friday, 29 October 2021.

• Read more on the guidelines and criteria for the awards.
• Download the nomination form.

Please submit nominations and applications to vc@uct.ac.za.

Sincerely

Professor Mamokgethi Phakeng
Vice-Chancellor

Read previous communications:

• From the UCT Executive
• Campus Announcements