Nominate someone for a Student-Led Teaching Award

We’ll be accepting nominations from any student from Wednesday 21st November until Wednesday 6th February 2019. I’ll be spending my time until then talking to people from every part of the university to make sure that they all know about the teaching awards, and that we recognise great work wherever it happens. Students can nominate any member of staff they think deserves recognition – we’ve suggested some categories but please don’t feel bound by them. If we agree that someone is exceptional then we’ll juggle them round to make it work!

Once all the nominations are in we start the judging process. There are two sets of student panels: shortlisting, and then awarding. During the shortlisting process we’ll aim to make sure everyone is in the right category and whittle down the nominations to just those who were the most impressive. I know from being on the panel for the last couple of years as a student that this usually the hardest part, and there are always very few nominations that aren’t impressive. Once we have a shortlist, that panel will pass over the awarding panel. They’ll look through the shortlists and decide on who in each category should be the winner, and a pick out a few who were highly commended too.

Awards are presented at a ceremony and drinks reception at the start of the Easter term. This year the ceremony will be on the 2^nd May 2019.

This year we’ll be presenting awards in 9 categories, designed to reflect the breadth of staff who are nominated as well as the kind of things that students in previous years have highlighted as important and noteworthy to them.

In all categories we’ll be considering the quality of nominations rather than the number of nominations for each person. We’ll also give thought to whether a nomination talks about something that everyone would have an equal opportunity to do; staying late to support a student every day is admirable, but it’s not something that everyone can do so we might be hesitant to award it. We’ll value nominations that include specific examples and anecdotes, as well as someone that’s sustained good practice over time.

The Student Led Teaching Awards is one the best part of my job. At CUSU we spend a lot time dealing with times when things aren’t going so well for students or their education. In the midst of that it can be easy to forget that the university is made up of its people, most of whom are dedicated, caring and impressive. This SLTAs are a great, and in my experience very much appreciated, opportunity to do recognise that.