Who are we?

CMD Annual Report 2021 - Who are we

Who are we?

Our mandate

The Communication and Marketing Department’s (CMD) mandate is to promote and protect the vision, mission and reputation of the university.

CMD supports the university and its strategic goals, with a focus on various internal and external stakeholders across South Africa, Africa and the globe. We are the main communication conduit of the executive, and we create and manage the platforms on which we celebrate the achievements of our students, academics and PASS staff.

Our daily activities revolve around executive communication, news management and distribution, media liaison, social media management, reputational management, crisis management, digital presence management, traditional media platform management, brand management, communication and marketing consultations, training, measurement and reporting, university-wide events and functions and the management of UCT’s online web presence.

“We work to profile UCT as a leading African university.”

How

We work to profile UCT as a leading African university in local, national and international mainstream media and social media; distribute a wide range of news and audio-visual material with which we bring to life the institution’s many inspiring stories of excellence and groundbreaking research, celebrating the people behind the achievements; and provide online live streaming of many UCT events, including the annual graduation ceremonies.

We continuously develop and implement strategies that engage key internal and external UCT stakeholders through integrated marketing, communication and brand promotion campaigns, institutional events, coordination of high-level stakeholder relations engagements; and we conduct advisory sessions on appropriate government and diplomatic protocols. This, to ensure that stakeholders are aware of the university’s initiatives and priorities.

We aim to keep UCT’s four main websites – www.uct.ac.za, www.staff.uct.ac.za, www.students.uct.ac.za and www.news.uct.ac.za – up to date, including the information architecture, usability, tracking of statistics and technical support; provide website support to other UCT website owners and content managers and manage the maintenance and development of the official UCT web content management system.

Our sustained communication ensures coverage of the focus areas underpinning the academic project: social responsiveness, excellence, transformation and sustainability.

Our contribution to UCT

We create and distribute a wide range of news, publications, audio-visual and media content, handle crisis communication and facilitate the production and distribution of all executive communication.

We coordinate university-wide events and manage stakeholder relations across campus on communication matters. We also update and maintain the university’s main communication platforms in order to promote UCT and advance its strategic goals, with a focus on both internal and external audiences across South Africa, Africa and the globe.

“Our sustained communication ensures regularly updated coverage of the focus areas underpinning the academic project.”

“CMD plays an essential role in promoting the university and its strategic goals, both internally and among our various external stakeholders. Our sustained communication ensures regularly updated coverage of the focus areas underpinning the academic project: social responsiveness, excellence, transformation and sustainability,” said Gerda Kruger, our executive director.

“CMD is the main communication conduit of the executive. It conveys the voice of the professional, administrative support and service (PASS) staff and remains a platform for celebrating the achievements of our students and academics, whether in research or in teaching and learning. Over the past two decades, I have come to rely absolutely on the professionalism, dedication and creativity of our increasingly diverse team of communication specialists.”

We are made up of five interrelated units: