Page 9 - DUT Excellence

DUT HONOURS STAFF AND STUDENTS FOR MAKING
MAGUBANE’S BOOK EXPLORES LOVEIN THE ERA OF ENVISION2030 A REALITY
Pictured: DUT Vice-Chancellor and Principal, Professor Thandwa Mthembu thanks DUT staff and students for making ENVISION2030 a reality.
DUT recently hosted the DUT Virtual Council Awards together with the Research and Innovation Awards to honour students and staff for making ENVISION2030 a reality.
Gracing this prestigious ceremony were two guest speakers, namely Professor Jako Olivier and Professor Rubin Pillay. Prof Olivier is a UNESCO Chair on Multimodal Learning and Open Education Resources. He is a Professor in Multimodal Learning: Research Unit Self-directed Learning, Faculty of Education, North-West University. Prof Pillay is a Professor of Medicine and of Business. He is the Assistant Dean in the School of Medicine; Chief Innovation Of cer, UAB Health
System University of Alabama at Birmingham (USA); and Editor in Chief of Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Health.
Delivering the keynote address, DUT Vice-Chancellor and Principal Professor Thandwa Mthembu said that the DUT Council Awards were conceptualised in 2015 at the start of our Strategic Plan 2015- 2019:Towards Relevance, Responsiveness and Resilience in a quest to create awareness and embed DUT’s strategic objectives and through them drive the mission of the University forward.
“The strategic plan at that time had a 2-4-6 structure, namely: two DNA strands, four strategic focus areas (SFAs) and six drivers, and awards.Those that focused on our DNA strands were named the Chancellor’s Awards. Those that focused on the SFAs were named Council Awards (SFAs) and those that focused on the drivers were named Vice-Chancellor’s Awards,” said Prof Mthembu.
He said that awardees were expected to showcase their exceptional contributions and initiatives, share their creativity and successes therefrom, and demonstrate how these propel DUT to greatness.
“With the re nement of our Strategic Plan 2.0 in 2017, criteria for the awards were expanded to include the impact of the project – to whom and how evident that impact is. This was an important change, signalling the intent for all our work at the University that is to be recognised in any way, to show evidence of impact in the broader society we serve.This was an important precursor to our new impact-oriented strategy, ENVISION2030. Nine projects were awarded under this broad rubric of awards,” explained Prof Mthembu.
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DUT EXCELLENCE 2021 // SEMESTER 1