NATIONAL TEACHING AWARDS - Five in a row for Lancaster

Professor Eric Evans, Professor of Social History and Dr Moira Peelo, Co-ordinator of the Student Learning Development Centre at Lancaster University have each won a national teaching award.

Eric Evans has had a long and distinguished career in which he has made significant contributions to the teaching and learning of history from school right through to post-graduate university level. He will use his award to develop the links between the way history is taught in schools and in universities.

Moira Peelo has played a major role in the development of academic support for students at Lancaster and has had considerable influence on the wider HE community in the area of academic support through her publications. She will use her award to develop resources to help improve the supervision of research students.

They are amongst fifty higher education teachers and learning support staff to be awarded a prestigious National Teaching Fellowships worth £50,000.

The National Teaching Fellowship Scheme (NTFS), now in its fifth year, recognises and rewards teachers or learning support staff in higher education for their excellence in teaching. It is managed by the Higher Education Academy on behalf of the Higher Education Funding Council for England and the Department for Employment and Learning in Northern Ireland, which fund the Scheme.

The 50 winners, chosen from a total of 249 nominations submitted by higher education institutions across England and Northern Ireland, will each be awarded £50,000, to be used for projects that will make a significant contribution to learning and teaching.

The winners will receive their awards from the Minister for Lifelong Learning and Higher Education, Alan Johnson, at a celebration dinner in London on 9 September 2004.

Lancaster University has achieved the unique distinction of having winners in each of the five years of the National Teaching Fellowship Scheme to date. Previous winners of the Fellowships are Professor Mick Short (Linguistics) 2000, Susan Armitage (HEDC) 2001, Dr Mike Winstanley (History) 2002 and Professor Amanda Chetwynd ( Department of Mathematics and

Statistics) last year.

The criteria used to select both the nominees and the finalists included the candidates’ ability to influence and inspire their students, to inspire their colleagues in their teaching, and to demonstrate a reflective approach to their teaching and to the support of learning.