All students can nominate staff in the following categories:
The winner will be a member of University staff who, in their capacity of Personal Tutor, is approachable, personable and takes time to talk/listen to you. The winner will do some of the following:
• Makes the best and constructive use of tutorial sessions, communicating the purpose and content of tutorials clearly to students;
• Engages in structured and meaningful conversations;
• Invests effort to build up a strong rapport with their students;
• Has high expectations of students appropriate to their abilities and learning styles;
• Is able to offer particular support for students with specific learning needs;
• Where appropriate, provides good pastoral support in times of difficulty offering reassurance and advice where needed;
• Is approachable by being regularly and easily available to students e.g. has regular contact times and adheres to them;
• Offers assistance to students in both academic and non-academic matters e.g. providing detailed references.
The winner will be a non-academic member of University staff who is approachable, personable and time to talk to you. This award is open to all staff including technical staff, librarians, departmental administrators, cleaning staff or academics. The winner will do some of the following:
• Be approachable by being regularly and easily available to students;
• Invest time and effort e.g. providing detailed advice or strong signposting to other services, helping you to get to the right person;
• Take the time to make you feel valued as a human being and builds up a strong rapport with their students;
• Go beyond the requirements of their technical, administrative, or pastoral role to help you progress as a student and as a person;
• Help in crisis e.g. if a student is thinking of dropping out gives good advice.
A member of University staff that helps students in their employability by providing exceptional advice and support, whether in their role as an academic, administrative or other support staff. The winner will do some of the following:
• Provides advice appropriate to the individual student e.g. tailoring it to their possible career trajectory;
• Provides appropriate challenges to encourage students to think as widely as possible about possible career choices;
• Encourages activity beyond the classroom i.e. societies, volunteering, sport, Exeter Award, conferences, trips;
• Helps students to better understand the relevance of extra-curricular activity to the wider employability agenda and needs of prospective employers;
• Actively encourages students to plan their career development;
• Where appropriate includes employer input in the design and reviewing of related learning activity and materials;
• Encourages work placements, other work-based learning opportunities, study abroad schemes and provides guidance on how to secure these opportunities;
• Promotes and encourages students to attend career and employability sessions delivered in all disciplines.
The winner of this award will be someone, either an academics or a non-academic member of staff, who makes use of creative methods to deliver an innovative and different learning experience for students. Examples of such could include any of the following:
• Delivering lecture, seminars, etc in a format that you have not experienced before;
• Use of different or unorthodox media to communicate the material;
• Involving students in delivery of teaching or encouraging them to take ownership of their learning experience in novel ways;
• Facilitates a less formal teaching environment by encouraging students to participate in discussion regardless of class size;
• Encourages the use of unorthodox assessment methods which both challenges students and invites you to think about problems in new ways;
• Tailors teaching to the class size and to individual student needs.
An award for a member of teaching staff who excels consistently. Their teaching should lead to the highest quality learning experience, engaging students in their learning and encouraging a passion for the subject. The winner will do some of the following:
• Evidence of good preparation & organisation, e.g. clear presentation of materials;
• Stimulation of students’ interest, engaging them in their learning and motivating them to perform to the best of their ability;
• Maintaining a positive classroom environment e.g. showing high expectations of students and maintaining a positive rapport with students;
• Teaching approach is student focused not material focused with students as co-operating partners in teaching & learning;
• Evidence of adapting to the different learning needs of individuals and individual groups of students;
• Understand the complexity of their subject or issues within it, and communicate this in a reassuring manner;
• Their quality of teaching is at a consistently high standard, not just on isolated occasions.
As we are a ‘research university’ this award aims to highlight staff who integrate their own and others’ research into teaching thus making it more visible. The academic who makes the best use of their own or other colleagues’ research in teaching, either through incorporating ongoing research into their teaching or providing students with opportunities to engage actively with cutting-edge work. The winner will do some of the following:
• Makes research accessible to a wider audience by actively including it in their teaching;
• Teaching is research informed or research- based, not necessarily research led;
• Give regular updates on the progress of their research and other research in their discipline and make students feel a part of the research process e.g. teach students the latest thinking in their subject;
• Introducing students into the academic community e.g. simulation of professional situations/dilemmas, bringing other professionals into the classroom, assignments that are professional tasks rather than essays;
• Encourage students to engage with research, follow in their footsteps and become researchers;
• Where possible, use students as active participants in research.
An award for the supervisor who does the most to encourage exceptional dissertations, at Undergraduate, Masters and PhD levels. There will be three winners for this category based on these levels. The winners will do some of the following:
• Ensures students feel well-supported throughout the process as a whole;
• Willing to devote time and energy to their students;
• Makes the best and constructive use of supervision sessions, communicating the purpose and content of sessions clearly to students, whilst also being adaptive and flexible based on students’ needs;
• An expert in their field who can deploy a wealth of knowledge to support dissertation writing or poster production;
• Attentive to detail and prompts students with feedback, which is tailored to suit individual student needs;
• Able to assist a student in identifying training or further learning needs;
• Helps students plan their dissertation and other pieces of work and to meet timescales;
• Balances active support and encouragement, with rigorous planning;
• Capable of using their experiences as a researcher to benefit their students e.g. sharing their own research methodology as appropriate;
• Willing to provide pastoral, career, and personal support, where appropriate to the needs of the student.
In addition, a further three categories are available for Academic Reps to submit nominations for:
The subject with the best research community will encourage engagement with research from all its students, supporting and promoting research activities within the department. The winner will do some of the following:
• Foster a community that promotes the importance of research, allowing and encouraging access and involvement from all students;
• Support and promote varied and numerous reading groups, lecture series and conferences within the department;
• Provide good support and resources for its research students;
• Ensures students have sufficient resources and are well equipped e.g. suitable work space;
• Research is visibly integrated into the subjects’ teaching and learning;
• Actively demonstrates the importance of research interaction between staff and students;
• Encouraging interplay between different research disciplines.
The subject that is delivering the most helpful, constructive, and innovative feedback on students’ assessment. The winning subject will do some of the below:
• Provide levels of detailed feedback that is specific, useable, constructive and supportive;
• Offer formative assessment to help students improve before they tackle summative work;
• Offer, where possible, more than one way of getting feedback such as advice surgeries and one-to-one appointments.
An award for the subject that gives the best overall experience to students. The winner of the best subject award will make students feel included and valued as part of their subject, value feedback and have a strong staff team, and excellent staff–student relations.
It is mandatory that the subject meets the first three criteria, and at least some of the others:
• Runs an effective SSLC that both staff and students are actively involved in and results in positive and visible change;
• Evidence of cooperation between teachers/staff (lab technicians, library staff, course administrators) to enhance the student experience;
• Facilitates effective co-creation opportunities between students and staff e.g. strong relations between the subject chair and Director of Education;
• Treat students as individuals and as part of the wider subject community;
• Act on student feedback and strive to capture it, informally and formally;
• A diverse range of teaching and learning opportunities are presented for students;
• Have a strong staff team that communicates well with the student body;
• The winner of this category is also expected to feature regularly in the other categories.