Vice-Chancellor's Education Excellence Awards

Dr Simon Stone, Dental School

Dr Stone receives his award for his leadership, teaching excellence, and contributions to education across the dental curriculum, with student experience and inclusivity at the forefront of his work. Simon is particularly commended for his work to champion post-Covid return to clinical practice, and for enabling valuable clinical experience for students.

Simon explained “I’m delighted to be able to receive this award.  Clinical dental training involves a huge circus of people and resources, in particular the need for a close, cohesive relationship the NHS, many people are unaware that Dental Students play such an active role in delivering healthcare to our community, with roughly 30,000 patient appointments delivered each year.  The last 5 years have been particularly challenging with the pandemic forcing the temporary closure of student delivered patient facing activity, the first time this has been the case in our 125 year history.  The restart and reshaping of clinical activity within the School was nothing short of exceptional and meant that we were to be in a position to safely return our students to patient facing activity and at the same time grow our portfolio of programmes. I am very proud to have played a key role in this and work alongside an exceptional team of academic and clinical colleagues who help to deliver our programmes.”

Professor David Rose, School X

Professor Rose receives his award for his innovative and sustained contributions to the field of Philosophy. The awarding panel praised David’s passion and commitment to his students and commended his work in “context based learning”. David’s teaching approaches have also attracted consistently excellent student feedback and have gained him international recognition and multiple teaching awards.

David commented “This award reflects a long development from my early days here at Newcastle and I would like to recognise my peers and students who have helped me to fashion an innovative way for learning to be personal and valuable and mostly to affirm its very social, collective aspect.”

SAgE + GO Team, School of Maths, Stats and Physics

Pictured: Joe Matthews, Lucy Bell, Lee Fawcett and Lana Spour

The Maths Stats and Physics “SAgE + GO Team” receive their award for demonstrating sustained commitment to the student learning experience and for encouraging global opportunities. The team were commended for their innovative approaches to student mobility and for making maths more accessible at scale. The support in place for exchange students is particularly noteworthy, as is the development of a global curriculum which is ambitious and future focused.

Lucy explained “We are honoured to be recognised for our ongoing passion and commitment to global opportunities for our students. Our collaboration with staff across the University means we can make student mobility more accessible and truly develop a forward-thinking global curriculum.”

Lee added “It is a privilege to be recognised for our commitment to making global opportunities accessible to all students in the School of Maths, Stats and Physics and the wider SAgE Faculty.  The development of short-term mobilities, including field trips, summer schools and virtual exchanges – as well as a range of new opportunities for study abroad – has made this a reality.  Of course, none of this would have been possible without close co-operation with our colleagues from the Global Education team.”