From a fundraising perspective, the greatest highlight of this year has undoubtedly been the paying out of the endowment fund from the Estate of the late DW Ackermann in the amount of approximately R196m. In accordance with the testamentary wishes of the donor, it is estimated that R5m will be available for electrical and electronic engineering bursaries annually. This bequest serves to strengthen the excellent work that is happening in this department within the Engineering Faculty.
Recently, fundraisers visited nine cities in three countries to attend 33 meetings with prospective donors, donors and other friends of the University. These visits presented multiple opportunities for the international profile of the University to be raised and provided many donation leads to follow up on in the second half of this year.
Apart from Professor Wim de Villiers’s UK fundraising trip, which took place from 15-22 May, the Rector also undertook a 13 day trip to six cities (New York, Boston, Seattle, Los Angeles, Atlanta, and Washington DC) in the USA in June, visiting donors and potential donors to the University and hosting alumni gatherings in each of these cities.
Overall, there was a blend of South African and American alumni at most of the events and they provided opportunities for Maties in the various regions of the USA to connect with each other, to build stronger personal networks, and to raise the profile of SU in the USA. Further highlights of the various USA alumni events were the increased number of young alumni attending as part of our efforts to reach out to Maties across different generations and the opportunity provided for us to identify prospective volunteer alumni hub co-ordinators and facilitators in each of the centres.
Despite the University’s significant transformation over the past decade – including intensive, proactive efforts to recruit academics of colour from across South Africa – the persistence of SU’s former reputation as an affluent, white, Afrikaans-speaking campus continues. The assumption that all SU students are from affluent backgrounds is incorrect. A recent estimate of our ‘missing middle’ showed that 41% of our students in 2016 (12 577) were from households with an income of R600 000 or less per annum.
The categorisation of SU as a ‘previously advantaged’ university has real implications in terms of government funding, for instance, through the weighting of available NSFAS bursaries in favour of universities falling in the ‘previously disadvantaged’ category. Because of this, of a total of 1 627 SU students theoretically qualifying NSFAS bursaries in 2016, only 966 actually received NSFAS funding. The remaining 650 students were all granted bursaries covered by SU institutional funding, a funding stream that is depleted by 2018.
There is an ongoing need for the fundraising team to secure bursary investment in the University to support our commitment to transformation. The percentage of students of colour at the University has increased to 38% (of a total of 30 150 in 2016) and will continue to rise to at least 40% across undergraduate and postgraduate studies within the next three years.
We rely upon your ongoing commitment to a fully diverse and excellent Stellenbosch University today and in the future. This commitment is so greatly appreciated.
Karen Bruns
Senior Director: Development and Alumni Relations
kbruns@sun.ac.za
