WITSReview wins international award
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Alumni magazine judged to be “gorgeous and substantial”
WITSReview, the magazine for alumni and friends of the University of the Witwatersrand, has won an international award for outstanding work.
The magazine was announced joint winner in the external audience print newsletter category on 16 June 2017 by the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE), based in Washington, DC.
CASE, which serves more than 3 600 of the world’s top universities, colleges and related organisations in more than 80 countries, presented the award for the December 2016 issue of WITSReview jointly with the University of Chicago’s publication, Tableau.
The WITSReview profiles the success of Wits graduates, campus life and academic and research achievements. The editor, Alumni Relations Director Peter Maher, says the magazine is extremely fortunate that Wits has phenomenally successful and interesting alumni to profile. “Regardless of their field of endeavour or country where they are based, Wits graduates can be found in leading positions in business, civil society, law, science, medicine, and in the arts. Wits is consistently ranked among the top universities in the world for alumni business success and achievement,” he says.
The CASE Circle of Excellence awards are based on factors such as overall quality, innovation, use of resources and impact. The judges, who are peer professionals, commented on WITSReview: “We loved that it deftly covered an entire university. The writing was clever and broad so that it could appeal to everyone. We thought the publication was well-paced and peppered with a variety of design elements and content types to hold interest.
“Both of the winning entries created a great balance between pop culture and academia by taking a serious look at current trends and issues … we found both publications were too gorgeous and substantial to cast aside unnoticed or unexplored. They would likely end up proudly displayed on someone’s coffee table or credenza. For print publications, that’s definitely a win!”
The University of Johannesburg was the first South African university to win a CASE award category for an advertising campaign developed by HKLM brand agency in 2010.
- The image on the cover of the December 2016 WITSReview is the painting Papeete, Tahiti 1978, by Walter Battiss, which is in the Jack Ginsberg Collection, courtesy of the Wits Art Museum.