And the winners are
Teaching, innovation, and outreach: the Department's staff, students and projects have been honoured in recent weeks.
OUSU Teaching Awards
Dr Elizabeth Gemmill, University Lecturer in Local History and Director of our Weekly Classes programme, has won an Oxford University Student Union (OUSU) Teaching Award for 'Most Acclaimed Lecturer', and an 'Innovation in Teaching' award has been won by Dr Amanda Burls, Director of Postgraduate Programmes in Evidence-Based Health Care. Marti Leimbach, tutor on the MSt in Creative Writing, was shortlisted for the 'Innovation in Teaching' title.
OUSU Teaching Awards are student-led, and aim to celebrate the University's best educators. Dr Gemmill said, 'Being able to share my passion for history is one of the joys of being an academic, and it is a privilege to teach students who are so enthusiastic about the subject and so committed to study as are those in the Department for Continuing Education. I am greatly honoured by the award.'
Dr Gemmill is also Director of our hugely popular new Certificate of Higher Education, an Oxford award based on participation in our weekly and online classes, and summer schools.
For more on the OUSU Teaching Awards, please see: teachingawards.ousu.org
Funding for new online modules
An Oxford Teaching Award of £5,000 has been given to Dr Kerry Lock, Departmental Lecturer in Environmental Conservation, for the creation of an online study skills seminar series. The project will commence with 'Bite Sized Statistics'. Modules will be available to students via their Virtual Learning Environment, allowing students to view topics at their own pace, and catering for a range of academic levels.
'New Generation Thinker'
Dr Jonathan Healey, our new University Lecturer in Local and Social History, is one of ten UK academics to have won the title of BBC Radio 3 New Generation Thinker 2012. This title seeks to identify early-career academics who have the potential 'to turn their groundbreaking ideas into sensational broadcasting'. Dr Healey replaces Dr Adrienne Rosen as Course Director of our very popular Advanced Diploma in Local History, a one-year, online Oxford award programme. His research encompasses English social and economic history from the fifteenth to the nineteenth centuries, focusing on the long-term development of the English economy and state, on rural history, and on the history of popular politics. Read more at: www.conted.ox.ac.uk/newgeneration
Community Archaeology Project 2012
The East Oxford Community Archaeology project was a finalist for Best Community Archaeology Project 2012, one of just three contenders for the British Archaeological Awards title. The award honours projects which are driven by amateur archaeologists within the local community, contribute to public education, and have a strong research focus.
The East Oxford project, which is began a new phase in October 2010, now has over 450 volunteers. It is led by Dr David Griffiths, Director of Studies in Archaeology, and Project Officer Jane Harrison. Discoveries made include prehistoric sites, Romano-British pottery industries, a medieval leper hospital, civil war defences, and the development of the landscape from farming to housing and industry. For more information, please see: www.archeox.net
Chevening Scholarship
Foundations of Diplomacy student Gary Wong has been awarded a prestigious Chevening Scholarship. Chevening scholarships support study at UK universities for students with demonstrable potential to become future leaders across a wide range of fields, including politics, business, the media, civil society, religion, and academia. Gary will be returning to Oxford shortly to join the Department's Foreign Service Programme.
Writing Fellowship
Maya Popa, second-year student on the MSt in Creative Writing, has been awarded a New York University Veterans' Writing Workshop Fellowship, and has also won a Bella Abzug Leadership Institute Writer Activist Prize. Her year-long NYU fellowship offers a generous stipend in exchange for leading a weekly creative writing workshop for recent veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Bella Abzug Institute is devoted to teaching leadership, writing and debate skills to girls from inner-city communities. Maya has worked with the non-profit organisation for four years, and was invited to serve on the Board of the Institute this year.
Published 16 July 2012