KIMBERLEY HALL 2017 ANNUAL REPORT

IntroductionOur annual report highlights key issues that happened during the year. It starts by highlighting our academic achievements. This is followed by brief reports on our wellness approach to life, diversity, environmental awareness and community engagement. Highlights and challenges relating to student wellness, residence sports and residential operations are presented. An overview of the future plans for the hall concludes the report.

Academic excellenceThe Hall will continue to present awards for academic excellence to our students during the Welcome Dinner at the beginning of the year. The Hall had a pass rate of only 69% compared to the best Hall which had a pass rate of 83%. We attributed this relatively poor performance to the gender effect. It is well known that female students perform better than male students. Kimberley Hall has three male residences and only one female residence. The hall is therefore unbalanced in terms of gender. The Hall will continue discussing innovative ways on improving academic performance.

Two of our wardens are established academics who have both won the VC’s Distinguished Teaching Award. The leadership in the Hall is obviously knowledgeable about issues of teaching and learning. We need to instill the ethos of learning to our students. Dr Gladman Thondhlana received the VC’s Distinguished Teaching Award for 2016. We congratulate him.

Wellness approach to lifeWe take student wellness seriously. Some residences in the Hall have wellness reps whilst others do not. We will seek guidance from the Director of Student Affairs on the way forward.

Valuing and embracing diversityOur hall embraces diversity as enshrined in our Hall Constitution. We always make efforts to cater for diversity in our House committees and in the sporting activities we do. For example, our sporting teams consist of students from diverse cultural and financial backgrounds.

Environmental awarenessKimberley Hall takes environmental issues seriously. Two of the wardens are environmental scientists. Next year we will put in place innovative ways of saving energy and water. Furthermore, we will promote recycling of wastes.We were unable to host the popular Environmental Fashion Show in 2017. Next year we will make sure that the show is hosted during the third term.

Community engagementOur students are actively involved in community engagement activities. Many of our students participate in the Students’ Volunteer Programme. We are proud to announce that Messrs Antony

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Marata and Mlungisi Magangane (both from Cullen Bowles) received the Engaged Student Award for committing their valuable time, skills and energy on a regular basis to contribute to sustainable human and community development in and around Grahamstown. We applaud their sterling achievements.

Cullen Bowles also organized a chess tournament to raise funds for the Give 5 Campaign. They raised R695. We applaud Cullen Bowles for this achievement.

Student wellnessThis year we did not experience major issues with students’ wellness compared to previous years. A couple of students were given an extended leave of absence. We thank the Counseling Centre and the San for offering excellent services to our students.

Residence sportsOur students participate in many sporting codes. Gold Fields residence came 5 th in inter residence sports and they won the Rhodes University soccer league. The following Gold Fields students also came 1st in rowing: Messrs Lwando Mtwa, Asiphelele Shabalala, Jared Day and Phumelela Booi. Mr Lwando Mtwa also made the Eastern Cape Province Pool finals. We applaud these great winners for raising the Kimberley Hall and Rhodes University flags!

Outstanding AchievementsMr Brian Mjoli (Resnet rep Cullen Bowles) excelled in the field of computer Science. He came 1 st in the Standard Bank IT Challenge (Rhodes University) and was invited to the national finals as part of the top 12 in the country.

He was also a Discovery Hackaton finalist where he had to develop an application which helps users to notify authorities when they are in danger. This was done by having microphones in the vehicle which listened for utterances of keywords defined by the user.He achieved 1st place in the Standard Bank Block Chain challenge for the Idea Chain. He built an agnostic rating application which runs on the block chain which provides ratings left by consumers in businesses such as restaurants and private hospitals.

He was also invited by Digital McKinzey and Facebook to a student conference/Hackathon which they hosted together with an American organization called Generation where he submitted an idea for the future that aims at combating unemployment. He developed a fully functional application which runs on the block chain. His idea was selected and placed 2nd overall. The top 2 contestants were then invited to Sandton by Facebook were they got an opportunity to speak publicly about their ideas. They also spent three days working together to come up with a single solution that Generation and Facebook could use in future to help combat unemployment not only in America and South Africa but around the globe.

Future plans for Kimberley HallKimberley Hall will be re-constituted to consist of two female and two male residences. One new female residence has been incorporated into Kimberley Hall. Unfortunately Cullen Bowles residence is no longer part of Kimberley Hall. Cullen Bowles will join Desmond Tutu Hall in 2018. We will miss Cullen Bowles.

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Final remarksIt was with great sadness that we learnt of the death of Mr Michael John Oelschig on 24 November. He was a former Kimberley Hall Warden. He crafted the famous Kimberley Hall constitution which has been adapted by almost all residences at Rhodes University. Dr Chrissie Boughey posted on Toplist (dated 24 November) a detailed obituary of Mr Oelschig who gave Rhodes University 23 years of outstanding service.

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Choose any of the photos below if necessary.

Some Cullen Bowles Students with Mr Mjoli who is holding a trophy (see Annual report above for his achievements in 2017).

Cullen Bowles Chess tournament to raise funds for Give 5 Campaign

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Kimberley Hall Team building activity at the beginning of the year

Rosa Parks on their way to RU Jamming

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Rosa Parks at the RU Jamming Finals. They came 2nd and won a computer for their residence

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Social Events

Students at the Kimberley Hall Leavers Dinner

Rosa Parks Seniors Picnic

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