The evening of 10 November 2016 saw the celebration of the University of Zimbabwe Vice Chancellor’s Awards which recognize the highest achieving students from across the University. The awards are an annual celebration and reward for outstanding achievements by students in areas that include: community service, leadership, sports, entrepreneurship, effective communication, university service, health promotion, global outreach, creativity and inventiveness, and networking. Audrey Simbiso Chidawanyika, a Level 3 Tourism, Leisure and Hospitality Studies student from the Faculty of Commerce outshone all awardees by winning the Community Service, Leadership and Entrepreneurship awards, and the much coveted Vice Chancellor’s Brand Ambassador Award. Maud Chifamba, the youngest ever student in Africa to enroll for University education at the age of 18 scooped the University Brand Promoter award.
Officiating at the event, the Vice Chancellor of the University of Zimbabwe, Professor Levi Martin Nyagura said “this is the forum on which a number of myths will be dispelled; that is, the myth that university education is entirely a pursuit of intellectual growth. The myth that sport is an area for the less intellectually gifted will be laid to rest; the belief that beneficiaries of university education are alienated from the reality of the lives of the ordinary citizen will go into the dust-bin of archaic educational theories; the myth that there are programs which do not allow one to engage in anything else but books and lap-tops will again be dispelled. It is here where our awareness will be drawn to the fact that knowledge and skills need not be compartmentalized and its beneficiaries made to fit into academic strait-jackets”.
