Barbara Morris Prize benefits students in ‘Skills Enhancement Week’ – Learning Support 2013.
Congratulations go to Dr Paul Fretwell, Director of Learning and Teaching and Employability and Events Coordinator, Ann Howe, the School’s joint winners of the Barbara Morris Prize for Learning Support 2013, along with the Student Support Team at the School of Arts at Canterbury, for their dedication and input into the ‘Skills Enhancement Week’ in February, 2013.
Thirteen Kent academics were recognised for their teaching excellence at a ceremony at the University’s Canterbury campus on 3 October presented by Professor Dame Julia Goodfellow, University Vice-Chancellor. ‘Teaching excellence is vitally important for all students. These annual awards recognise this. I congratulate all those who have received awards this year. The projects are first rate.’
The School of Music and Fine Art’s Skills Enhancement Week took place between Monday 18th and Friday 22nd February, which replaced ‘Reading Week’, provided an invigorated forum and a focussed few days of informative and inspirational events for students to be able to enhance their skills leading to improved employability. Students were able to earn University ‘Employability Points’ by attending these events and prizes were on offer to the student who attended the most sessions and the event went on to lead to a number of student placements and internships with organisations such as Microsoft Computer Games, Zealous, Earcom Ltd and other work experience opportunities.
The team were dedicated to securing an array of industry-recognised guest speakers who provided lively talks, along with a week’s schedule of mixed study skills and employability-related workshops. Activities such as workshops on self-employment, entrepreneurship, developing partnerships and networking spanned the five days and there were personal and professional development workshops too, where students could learn about how to build and develop their online presence and how to ‘market’ themselves, hone their CV writing skills and learn about the Year Abroad possibilities.
The judging panel were impressed with the team’s employment-focussed student support, as the Skills Enhancement Week clearly enriched the student’s experiences and provided a model which could be emulated across other the other Schools. It was also deemed an excellent example of external engagement, benefiting both students and the University through collaboration.
‘The week proved to be a great success and was even opened up to other University students to attend’ said prize winner Ann Howe. ‘It provided a great opportunity for career networking for students with external industry employers and gave students a chance to think holistically about their education, develop an awareness of skills needed for future employment and to actively build their own employability’
For full details on all the 2013 University of Kent Teaching Prize Award winners and see for more images: http://www.kent.ac.uk/teaching/news.html?view=568
Image caption:
Winners of the Barbara Morris Prize for Learning Support 2013 (SMFA’s Paul Fretwell 2nd right, Ann Howe 3rd right)