The Vice-Chancellor’s Awards for Staff Excellence 2021 Wednesday 17th November 2021
Excellence in Partnership Welcome Welcome to the tenth annual Staff Excellence Awards. This special event gives us the opportunity to celebrate and reward colleagues who have been doing outstanding work at the University of Wolverhampton. This past year has brought us all new challenges, but there is now a wellspring of hope as we look forwards to the country’s recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic. This is a particularly special awards evening for me, which will be my last as the University’s Vice-Chancellor. I am so proud of every one of you – winners, nominees, and staff – and it has been an immense honour to see so many dedicated, exceptional colleagues over the years serving this institution and its students. Thank you to everyone who has made these events and my time here so special. In total there are nine award categories in order for us to show our appreciation of the huge contributions made by staff, who are integral to creating an environment in which students can succeed. Each and every member of staff contributes to our presence as the University of Opportunity. The judging process each year involves two separate panels, the first of which recommends a short list from the nominations received and the second of which selects the winners in each category. There was a large number and high standard of nominations this year, so these panels had tough decisions to make! Thank you all for your continued hard work over the last 12 months – the dedication of all our staff is greatly appreciated and the colleagues nominated tonight should feel especially proud of their achievements. Congratulations! I wish you all a very pleasant evening.
Professor Geoff Layer Vice-Chancellor
02 | Welcome
An individual or a team that has demonstrated outstanding commitment and professionalism through partnership working, providing a high quality service to our students, staff or stakeholders.
April Harper, Amanda Bloore, Suman Hira, Kate Wilson, Emma Franklin Research Institute of Information Language Processing administrative team This team has done extraordinary work in partnerships to ensure that we have the infrastructure, systems, and processes in place to grow our research activity and outcomes. Their work is vital for supporting our scholars, visitors, and postgraduate students, which is key to attracting funding and self-funded students. Collectively, they manage multi-million-pound projects with partners from over 20 countries. The team has also initiated, developed, and maintained strong relationships with units such as Finance, HR, Bidding Support Team, RPU, ITS, Student Records, Registry, STAR office, Visa and CAS team, Admissions, and FSE. Additionally, the team has formed a way of working that allows easy handover and collaborative work, and ensured that a sense of community has continued off campus.Throughout the past year their infamous ‘cake Wednesdays’ moved online, there was bingo at Christmas, and they have organised picnics in the park for staff and students. The team also supports the REF submission for the two UoA’s that are situated within RIILP.
Terry Gibson External Engagement Terry Gibson works as development manager in the Alumni Team in External Engagement. Since he started at the University, he has been instrumental in promoting and securing fundraising and sponsorship activities including Giving Tuesday. He also helps secure funding for education programmes but, in the main, he has been key to attracting and securing sponsors for the University of Wolverhampton Race Team for the School of Engineering.
Terry has almost single-handedly raised the profile of the University’s partnership with Morgan Motor Company, their success in the Formula 3 Cup Competition, and in the annual Student Formula competition. He works closely with the Centre for Sikh and Panjabi Studies to secure scholarships for students from local Gurdwaras, and looks after our crucial partnership with Bentley. Terry was also a key member of the Communications Command Cell.
Excellence in Partnership | 03
Excellence in Valuing Equality, Diversity & Inclusion
Inspirational Team Member An individual who has supported and motivated team colleagues to develop their potential and work together with purpose and professionalism to achieve the highest standards.
An individual or team who has demonstrated an outstanding commitment to ensuring equality, valuing diversity, and promoting inclusion for students and/or staff, such as developing positive and proactive initiatives to recognise and address the differing experiences of our diverse student and/ or staff base, championing inclusion to enable all to achieve their potential, free from discrimination or prejudice, or making a valuable contribution to a staff network.
Josiane Boutonnet Faculty of Arts, Business and Social Sciences
Ahecia Taylor Faculty of Arts, Business and Social Sciences Ahecia Taylor has recently successfully completed two years as a GTA in the Business School, but she has brought more than just excellent teaching and pastoral support: she has also brought leadership. Ahecia recognised that to meet our APP targets and address the BAME awarding gap we needed to create a bespoke plan for the Business School that met the needs of our students. She created
a new EDI group and with the complete support of the school leadership she pulled together a multidisciplinary team of academics to debate and discuss the data and create an action plan for the future. The team that she leads has developed a new programme that will be rolled out in 2021/22, designed to increase the sense of belonging to the University and support academic achievement.
and ethnicity. Her calm and confident manner is commendable, and she deserves to be recognized for her selfless service to the University and the wider community.
Megan Lawton
Suzy became course leader for the BSc (Hons) Paramedic Science just before the pandemic struck. Within a matter of days, our main partner Trust suspended all paramedic placements and began to employ our students as part of the COVID-19 response, face-to-face clinical skills teaching ended and theory teaching moved online. We had 250 students with no clinical placement and no clinical skills teaching.
complexity of what Suzy achieved cannot be overstated. She was new in role and was now taking the lead in reorganising multiple iterations of the programme, supporting the changes of assessment, and somehow keeping track of the students on the programme. She worked ridiculously long hours and played an exceptional part in keeping the pipeline of paramedic graduates flowing throughout the pandemic.
Suzy took a leading role in reorganising the programme on multiple occasions, and the
Directorate of Student and Academic Service She has also been the instrumental in the approval of the Action Framework for Disability Equality and has commenced the WLT ‘This is Me’ research project to share the lived experiences of disabled staff and students across our University.
Natalia Hill, Natalie Sumner-Cole, Christina Blakey, Victoria Wall Women’s Staff Network As an institution we have significant challenges in respect of gender equality – there remains a substantial gender pay gap, women are underrepresented in research and research leadership, and stereotyping is not uncommon. The WSN was therefore a timely and important initiative, and the WSN leads have created something truly meaningful and impactful. They have put in place a range of activities and events that colleagues can dip in and out of, raised the profile of WSN
Throughout the pandemic she has made sure that the Department’s Canvas pages are easily navigable by students and that they are consistent in design. She has also spent many hours recording Panopto clips, and passed on many tips regarding blended learning that come from her own experience.
Faculty of Education, Health and Wellbeing
Faculty of Education, Health and Wellbeing
Megan is co-chair of the Disabled Staff Network. During the pandemic she has created safe spaces for neuro-diverse staff to be able to share experiences and issues.
As a manager, she was a model of the CARE framework in action before it existed, exercising
understanding, compassion, and imaginative engagement within a practical appreciation of how University systems work.
Suzy Paget
Marcia Edwards Marcia has always promoted inclusivity, diversity, and equality at the University. She is one of the few black leaders at our institution and is approached by members of staff and students whenever they experience challenges specifically related to race
Josiane has worked at the University for more than 30 years and in that time has taught on most of the English Language modules at the institution. She is the definition of a team player and embodied this long before she assumed her current role as Deputy Head of the School of Humanities. She has always been tireless in her care for students, leading by example in her willingness to explore any available avenue to assist those in need.
externally by linking up with similar groups outside UoW, and invited inspiring external speakers. Alongside this, they have also created a platform and visibility for their own amazing female leaders, creating many opportunities for others to get involved. The energy and commitment of the team are truly inspiring and the award would be a well-deserved recognition of their efforts and achievements.
Thomas McKenna Digital Services Thomas is known across the University as being the go-to for Canvas support. His wealth of knowledge with this platform is impressive enough but what colleagues who have asked for his help will say is that his attitude, aptitude and warm personality (particularly when timelines are tight), are what stands out. Academic colleagues are completely reliant on Thomas’s skill and knowledge of the Canvas platform to respond to any and all of their various course requirements. The brand new, and completely online, central welcome and arrival induction course in Canvas,
was needed almost overnight, due to the Pandemic. New and returning students were not able to attend the usual on campus induction sessions that are so key to orientation and settling in, so Thomas was absolutely crucial to the creation, setting up with the right access, and roll out of this new course. Thomas has a real tenacity and eye for detail while maintaining corporate reputation and compliance (e.g. GDPR, data security etc).
04 | Excellence in Valuing Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Inspirational Team Member | 05
Above and Beyond An individual or a team that has made a substantial, but largely unrecognised, contribution to our, students, staff or stakeholders – and in doing so, has gone above and beyond the high quality of service and professionalism we would expect.
Chris Haigh, Oliver Jones, Ivan Hollins, the STaR team, Phil Gravestock, Gemma Witton, Paul Towers, Alison Attrill-Smith, Debbie Stevens-Gill, Garrett Kennedy, Jeffrey Ting, Sarah Williams, Shaukat Ali, Emma Bloomfield, Neil Worton, Raimond Melis, Laura Clode, Ian Pearson, Tracy McCoy, Mel Malloy, Jason Musgrove, Luke Henry University of Wolverhampton Online team The University of Wolverhampton Online team often works at altitude, runs on sand, and goes far beyond what is expected for their roles. The list of significant contributors who contributed to ensuring that students could continue their courses online throughout the lockdown is long, but there are some very special shout-outs. Without project manager Chris Haigh’s consistent oversight, diligence, planning and knowledge, we could not have achieved what has been described as “building a university in six months.”
Faculty of Arts, Business and Social Sciences Martin is a committed, conscientious and amenable staff member with a willingness to contribute wherever he can. He has taken on the management of the provision of specialist equipment for the Wolverhampton Screen School project, which is a complex task requiring extensive groundwork to acquire a deep and detailed knowledge of the requirements of each Screen School department. He has worked tirelessly with a number of suppliers, contractors and University departments, whilst working within
Phil Gravestock and the CoLT team deserve praise for ensuring no deadline was ever missed and our students had a seamless classroom experience. This team’s work includes the Orientation Module and creating each module’s Canvas site.
Stuart Bentley, Sarah Dar, Jo-Anne Watts
The Psychology team’s dynamic programme design skills, tutor training, and phenomenal achievements in managing the unprecedented spike in student numbers. The Business School team led the curriculum development and validation process, while course leader Shaukat Ali’s expertise in online teaching ensured that the first module on the MBA programme went off without a hitch.
The team made an immense contribution to our institutional REF submission.
Lisa Bramwell Faculty of Education, Health and Wellbeing
06 | Above and Beyond
Martin Evans
Senior Primary ITE lecturer Lisa is module lead for undergraduate placements. She has gone above and beyond in her role, covering for the postgraduate position too while there was no one in post, during the most challenging of years.
short of placements made this a near-impossible mission. She relentlessly contacted schools, persuading them to support student teachers and emphasising how important it was for teacher training to continue.
When Lisa was not teaching or remotely meeting with students and school staff, she had the extra responsibility of sourcing hundreds of placements for student teachers during a pandemic. The fact that during a standard year we are always
Only a very small amount of placements had to be cancelled, and the vast majority went ahead. Lisa leads very well and is likeable, hard-working, and the best of team members to work with.
the constraints of the given budget to ensure the project can be completed as efficiently as possible. His commitment to his role has given him an extensive understanding of the project, making him the ‘glue’ keeping project members up to speed with the latest developments. I believe Martin deserves special recognition for going above and beyond his required job role to enable the University to provide a state-of-the-art facility for its stakeholders within the Screen School and its wider associates.
Directorate of Student and Academic Services, Scholarly Communication Team & University librarian
The University submitted 738 outputs, and for each output had to provide at least 17 separate data entries. There were also additional requirements for subsets of outputs. The scholarly communication team did all the data checking, developed policies and processes for ensuring open access compliance and the rigorous application of exemptions, and collated the outputs which the REF team could not source.
Under lockdown in January to April 2021, the team ordered the physical copies from the publishers or in some cases collected these from the academic staff, labelled and packaged these before dispatching them to the REF on our designated delivery date. Outputs account for 60% of the weighting of our assessment and if it had not been for the team’s diligence, knowledge, and professionalism, we would not have been able to submit as high a quality submission as we have done.
Above and Beyond | 07
Contribution to the University’s Presence
Innovation or Initiative of the Year
An individual or team who has made a major contribution at any level to any University-related activity, whether by leadership, quality, support, implementation, estate enhancement or professional developments such as media or promotion; which has enhanced the University’s presence.
An individual or team who has identified and delivered imaginative solutions or ways of working which have enhanced the student experience or service delivery, delivered efficiencies and/or have successfully generated income.
Helen Sargeant, Alison Carminke, Natasha George, Claire Buckerfield, Scott Knight, Karen Shaw, Francesco Paradiso, Emma Bloomfield Faculty of Arts, Business and Social Sciences, FABSS KE Team The work of the FABSS team featured heavily in the Public and Community Engagement Section of our KEF Narrative for which the University was rewarded with a top 10% standing in our results. This is a relatively small, but very experienced and knowledgeable team that works on a vast range of projects that identify opportunities for arts and cultural subjects to work with other sectors, raise aspiration in communities, and tackle difficult societal topics. Using arts/cultural activities, the team works collaboratively with diverse groups and communities to address hidden issues and break down barriers. They share expertise and skills to connect the arts with health and wellbeing to reduce stigma and grow understanding. The team has successfully produced creative work for New Cross Hospital A&E, Telford Hospital Intensive Care Unit, the arts-based project Living in Silence, and SignMedia.
Abigail Parkes, Emily Rodden, Jordan Brennan Faculty of Science and Engineering The recent changes to GCSE assessments due to the pandemic left many students in an unfair position where they were unable to receive teacher-assessed grades and hence meet the entry requirements needed to study at University. In just six weeks, these staff members developed and rolled out a solution: the self-paced online GCSE Maths Equivalence Course, which enables students to demonstrate that they have maths skills equivalent to GCSE grade 4. Since July 2020, this team has supported over 350 applicants to complete all sections of the course
Dr Ian Jackson
Amanda Ross
Faculty of Arts, Business and Social Sciences
Faculty of Arts, Business and Social Sciences
Ian engages with activities that go beyond his main role, but always in a quiet and unassuming way. He is always one of the first colleagues in the department to put his hand up to support outreach activities such as taster events and liaisons with schools.
He has also contributed to the online lecture series for Verity Hilton at our Stafford campus. Ian particularly excels in his extensive media work, which encompasses many different types of activity such as radio interviews, newspaper and magazine articles, and digital media.
Prior to the lockdown, Ian was a regular visitor to various feeder institutions both locally but as far afield as London where he delivered guest lectures on contemporary topics as well as giving course specific talks to promote our Economics courses.
All of these elements have several things in common: they are contemporary, delivered with passion and professionalism and, above all else, have raised the profile of UWBS significantly both within and beyond the region.
Paula Harrison, Shirley Steer
06 | Contribution to the University’s Presence
Amanda was able to leverage her leisure industry connections to provide talks and interactive sessions which explored career opportunities and
provided training and awareness of key issues in the leisure sector for students. The purpose was to highlight that careers in travel are not only limited to cabin crew and holiday reps. Speakers included Destination Wolverhampton and the Black Country, The Hospitality Partnership, Premier Inn (Whitbread), Party Hard Travel and Holiday Extras. The student and speaker feedback was exceptional and the event was such a success that Amanda is already planning the 2022 Business in Bloom event.
Dawn Jones, Lynn Ellison
External Engagement Paula and Shirley work relentlessly for the Lifelong Learning Team, creating effective partnerships within the University to ensure that courses, events, public profile activities and growth are delivered year-on-year. In the context of the pandemic, they rapidly moved provision online and have achieved an international profile for the University through an ever expanding public lecture programme which showcases the expertise of academics and researchers.
Amanda led Business in Bloom, a bespoke three-day employability conference designed to inspire, educate, and invigorate students with a view to helping them to stand out in the graduate marketplace. The initiative was also a springboard for the beleaguered leisure sector that had been so badly affected during the pandemic.
by offering instructional videos, practise quizzes, and one-to-one appointments. This support is available University-wide, all year round, and supports students at entry points in September, January, and April. There are hundreds of current undergraduate and postgraduate students who would not be studying with us today were it not for the remarkable efforts of this team. This initiative has revolutionised the way in which we think about mathematics entry requirements across the University.
Registry, Quality and Collaboration Unit Paula and Shirley have worked tirelessly for the past five years to achieve all of University Centre Telford’s aims and more. They have played a pivotal role and are a driving force for much of the success, building outstanding relationships across the University with academic and professional services colleagues alongside a range of teams including the Gateway service, the former MRO teams/now UK Recruitment and academics.
Considering feedback from students and upon previous teaching practice and pedagogic research, Dawn and Lynn developed a wholeSchool approach to the information provided to students within our Canvas platform, to promote a consistency of delivery and student experience across all modules. After discussing with Digital Services about the capabilities of Canvas, they found that it was possible to create a ‘blueprint’ which could then be applied to all modules. Using this blueprint, any student queries can now be dealt with easily
in relation to where the relevant information can be obtained – irrespective of what module they are studying. Generally, the level of queries have significantly reduced as students have become familiar with the blueprint. This was developed at short notice but provided an excellent platform to deliver online and blended learning. The students have since given positive feedback during the course of the academic year, telling us that they are now able to navigate the pages with ease.
Innovation or Initiative of the Year | 07
Outstanding Contribution to Research An individual or team who has made a major contribution at any level to any university-related research activity, whether by leadership, funding streams, quality, support, implementation or any professional developments.
Stefano Kaburu, Simon Maddock, Mark O’Shea, Stefano Vaglio
Dr Sarah Whitfield
Faculty of Science and Engineering
Faculty of Arts, Business and Social Sciences
These staff members have been nominated in recognition of their research that addresses societal challenges in relation to wildlife and wildlife conservation. The group’s research interests are wide-ranging and involve the breeding behaviours of captive animals (important, as without this several species may become extinct), the creation of bio-diversity corridors in developing countries, researching into causes of decline and efficacy of preservation measures of species native to the Midlands, and snakebite
prevention. The team have received honours for their work (most recently Mark O’Shea, who was invited to become a member of the World Health Organisation’s expert panel on snake bites), were features on national television (BBC Countryfile), are part of highly prestigious international research teams (Maddock with Krause at Michigan and Cloos at Texas, as well as being a scientific associate of the Natural History Museum), and received highly prestigious grants (e.g. Vaglio’s H2020 MSCA grant).
Sarah’s body of research since 2016 has contributed enormously to the rewriting of musical theatre histories, as they are understood both nationally and internationally with particular regard to the exclusions of race and gender.
and training courses on impact, linked with external organisations (including organising a joint session with the Parliament’s POST office), created a West Midlands impact group, ran two Impact Days, and supported research centres and institutes to improve their web-presence. In sum, the impact officers have made a huge difference to the University’s REF submission but also created a real step change in how we approach and support impact across the institution
Mary Surridge
Sarah’s pioneering published work underpinned an Impact Case Study in REF2021, and her work has garnered significant interest from many academic institutions internationally, cultural and public education institutions, numerous performing arts organisations, and major examination bodies. As a defining signifier of the international stature of her work, Sarah has been invited to present her research in an evening concert at London’s prestigious Wigmore Hall with her theatre collaborator Sean Mayes, where she will discuss key findings from her research. Sarah has also been crucial to support the development of other colleagues’ research by reviewing work and guiding research approaches, running training sessions in writing skills for publication and research methods, and bringing in numerous respected international researchers to present for the performing arts research centre.
Chris Wyatt, Jo Mills, Ben Coleman Research Policy Unit We appointed our team of impact officers in 2019 as the mock review of our REF submission showed serious weaknesses in the development of impact case studies. Within less than two years, the impact officers supported the development and writing up of the 38 impact case studies and 17 unit-level environment templates. Alongside this, the impact officers developed, consulted and got approval for an institutional impact strategy, developed a suite of resources
08 | Outstanding Contribution to Research
Faculty of Arts, Business and Social Sciences Mary Surridge is nominated for this award for her inspirational leadership of a challenging four-year research study, which will have a profound practical and policy impact affecting the lives of many children across Zimbabwe. Mary is passionately committed to improving conditions for those who miss out living their lives to the full, and dedicated to influencing others to do what is right. For many years, Mary has supported all CIDT staff and many CIDT clients to appreciate the importance of gender and social inclusion in our work and in our lives. The study’s results have provided the Government of Zimbabwe and the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education with evidence to support its important planning, policy shaping and expenditure on education. The research evidence in this UNICEF report is very much underpinning the formulation of critically important plans that will affect future generations of school children in Zimbabwe.
Outstanding Contribution to Research | 09
Excellent Citizenship An individual or team that has demonstrated exceptional citizenship in their willingness and commitment to helping others and/or making a significant positive difference for others in the University and/or wider community, such as working with voluntary organisations, involvement in a local environmental or sustainability project or mentoring others.
Belinda Smith
Health Technicians: Alicia Mackenzie, Shannah Miah and Hayley Carruthers
Faculty of Arts, Business and Social Sciences Belinda recently moved over to the School of Arts, and the entire department has come to rely on her knowledge. Her kindness and patience towards students and colleagues has become legendary. As Student Advisor in the Student Services department within the Faculty of Arts, Business and Social Sciences, Belinda Smith represents the gold standard for assessing the level of commitment to the University’s central objective of putting students first. Her default position has always been to place student experience
Vice-Chancellor’s Special Award
front-and-centre, which means working tirelessly to support academic colleagues in their efforts to maintain student welfare. Like so many of her fellows in Student Services, she met the challenges of Covid-19 head-on. She combines the rare gifts of a thorough command of our systems, astute judgement, diplomacy, and an unfailing good humour to defuse pressured situations. The Faculty and its students would be inestimably poorer without her.
Faculty of Education, Health and Wellbeing The Health Technicians, led by Alicia Mackenzie, have worked above and beyond over the last 12 months to support growth in the Faculty, its students and academics. The technicians have enabled skills and simulation sessions to continue throughout lockdown, which supported our health students as key workers during the pandemic. In preparation for the opening of the new Marches Centre of Excellence, the technician team was considered pivotal in the support they provided in the facility’s design. The team worked tirelessly to ensure the correct equipment was in place and set up ready for the launch event in May 2021, whilst also managing the recently expanded facilities at Walsall Campus and relocating facilities at Burton Campus. The new skills and simulation facilities on all three sites make a real-life impact on our students learning experience. Still, without the technical team’s knowledge, hard work and dedication, these facilities would not be the success they are today.
Joshua Whale Faculty of Arts, Business and Social Sciences Josh deserves this award for his work supporting TNE partnerships generally, but also for the excellent relationship management he has demonstrated in his link tutor role with Podar World College. Any queries raised with Josh are dealt with swiftly and efficiently, ensuring Podar students are given appropriate flexibility whilst not compromising our quality standards. During the pandemic Josh volunteered in his community, taking people to hospital appointments and delivering food
and other essential supplies to those who were shielding and unable to leave their homes. Josh also actively mentors students, particularly those studying at partner institutions, and encourages them to stretch themselves to fulfil their potential, often connecting them to opportunities and involving them in projects which they would not otherwise have access to. Josh is a selfless and inspirational team member and an excellent citizen of the University and his local community.
Ian Jukes, Phil Oakes, Louise Davies Faculty of Education, Health and Wellbeing, Psychology technicians The psychology technicians have been such a fantastic support for our department – both for staff and students. They are always happy to help with any enquiries and always do so with a welcoming smile. Ian has even kept us all entertained this year with regular quizzes. Our technicians are invaluable – thank you!
10 | Excellent Citizen
Vice-Chancellor’s Special Award | 11
Tonight’s entertainment AJ Productions AJ Productions features students and staff from the School of Performing Arts. The performers are drawn from our audio technology, music and popular music courses and are supported by one of our senior technicians. AJ Productions gig frequently but haven’t stopped making music during the pandemic. The piece showcased tonight is an example of the work they’ve continued to make together over the past year. Louise Sawalha Louise Sawalha is a graduate of the School of Performing Arts. Having studied music, Louise is now performing across the country at high-profile events. This piece marks her first professionally released video as a solo recording artist. BMus Popular Music Students This piece features level 6 popular music in their improvisation assessment. Performing in the Black Box Theatre at the Performance Hub, students continued to perform under difficult circumstances. Even with safety measures in place they have still managed to make music together and celebrate their time together at the University.
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Thank you to everyone involved in tonight’s Awards for Staff Excellence and a big congratulations to all nominees and winners.