Below is a list of previous Vice Chancellor's Awards winners by year. They received their certificate and lapel pins at our Annual Learning and Teaching conference.
If you would like to apply for a Vice Chancellor's Award, please visit the Vice Chancellor's Award page.
Jeannette runs a highly successful arts-based community research and outreach project ‘New Routes, Old Routes’, which raises awareness of historical and contemporary experiences of exile and migration in Norfolk and Cambridgeshire.
The project makes a genuine contribution to the local community and represents true dissemination of Jeannette’s research expertise beyond academia. It is ambitious in terms of the sheer number of people reached, the diversity and originality of the activities, and the varied external partners and funding she has secured.
As a Senior Research Fellow, Chris has responsibilities that cover the generation of external research income, contributing to the research environment of the Global Sustainability Institute, and supporting colleagues across the University. He co-leads one of the research themes within the Institute and therefore takes on responsibility for part of ARU’s research strategy. These activities have put ARU in a lead position for shaping debates on how to account for ‘people and society’ when producing/delivering EU energy policy.
Baris Isikguner has transformed Computer Games Art since he took over as Course Leader for the BA(Hons) course in June 2015. At the end of his first year of leadership, with the able support of a talented course team, he had transformed the position of the course. The NSS overall satisfaction score that year (2016) was 100%, and student numbers had risen from June 2015 to September 2016 by 60%. In 2016/17, the NSS overall satisfaction score remained high, at 93.3%, whilst retention rose to 96.1%.
Handy has encouraged, mentored and graduated students with the Bloomberg Market Concepts (BMC) certification. The completion of the BMC has helped students to develop interests to be a part of the Anglia Ruskin Investment Group (ARIG). The ARIG is a complete redesign from the previously dormant Anglia Ruskin University Finance. With the help from his key Banking and Finance students, Handy has rebuilt the society from the ground up to be a much more active (and proactive) student-led, student-run society.
Sarah is the ARU lead for the innovative Addenbrooke’s Community Paediatric Ophthalmology Service (ACPOS), delivered within the University Eye Clinic (Cambridge). Not only has Sarah developed the business case for the service but she has also managed most of the processes to enable its establishment. This collaboration is unique in the East of England and brings benefits to the patients (infants and young children), as well as providing excellent teaching and research resources to ARU students and researchers.
The team has been heavily involved in all key stages of the LMS project, working together since its inception to ensure all undergraduate and postgraduate modules were populated for the beginning of each semester in 2017/18.
A cascading approach to CPD ensured all teaching staff were able to develop their modules in Canvas helping to ensure that all students have an equitable and inclusive learning experience. All team members exemplify excellence in cross-university collaboration and leadership in their respective contexts, ensuring project milestones are met.
In 2017, the Department for Education (Chelmsford) overturned several years of poor student satisfaction to achieve National Student Survey scores that exceeded the university and sector average for all our courses. In addition to the improvements to the NSS in 2017, staff satisfaction rose from the lowest in the University in 2015 to the highest in the 2017 Staff Survey. Greater job satisfaction has resulted in low staff turnover which has in turn provided consistency for students.
Joanne is the Research Administrator for the Faculty of Medical Science and supports the Director of Research and Director of Research Students. She also administers the Faculty Research Ethics Panel, 63 postgraduate research students, the laboratory safety subcommittee, the Faculty Research Subcommittee, undergraduate internships, research funding bids, REF2021, and supports the Faculty Research Degrees Subcommittee.
Joanne has been critical in developing and implementing a new system that has meant that the postgraduate research student annual review completion rate has increased from less than 70% to almost 100%.
The Compliance Team introduced a Right to Study initiative using identity validation software. This significantly overhauled ARU’s Enrolment processes, enhanced the student experience, and ensured the University met sponsorship duties under Tier 4. The Right to Study project has contributed to the development of high quality sustainable technical solutions to improve the student journey. The Project has raised the profile of ARU in the sector, increased the standing of our University, and positively contributed to relations with the Home Office.
The Learning Technology Unit in LAIBS have developed a reputation for delivering excellence in all areas of work underpinning our university’s move towards a digital campus and active learning curriculum. They have transformed our use of learning technology – contributing significantly to corporate strategies through their commitment to excellence. They delivered a plethora of impactful initiatives – leading on the adoption of the new LMS, piloting new software, championing the delivery of an inclusive learning community through technological innovation, and by sharing best practice across ARU and our partners.
John has been awarded a Vice Chancellor’s award for his excellence in PhD supervision. Over the years John has inspired his doctoral students and achieved early completions. Completing a PhD on time in a humanities subject where often significant space and time is required for the student to identify and refine their thesis project, is a considerable challenge. However most recently John has achieved the impressive feat of guiding four different PhD students to timely completion within a few months of each other. Each student’s thesis impressed external examiners and required few if any corrections.
Karen set up a Buddy Scheme in March 2015 to support September starters amidst growing concerns about student engagement and retention. She worked closely with Study Support to develop a training programme suitable for peer-to-peer mentoring and obtained buy-in from Heads of Department.
Over two years, 90 student buddies have been trained to offer pastoral support to an uptake of approximately 220 new Year 1 students. These results demonstrate that Karen has a real passion for engaging with our students who may need pastoral care. She has the imagination and drive to run with a project such as this and we recognise her efforts with this Vice Chancellor’s Award.
Lana has worked very closely with Residential Service for several years to purchase and set up a brand new online accommodation system, StarRez. She’s worked with the team to understand their needs and collaborated with the StarRez developers to review and refine the system so that it did exactly what we needed it to do. Lana continually strives to improve the software on a daily basis so that we get the very best out of it. Her involvement has helped to revolutionise the Residential Team’s accommodation processes to great effect.
Michael received this award for his exceptional work and coordination of the Energy in Water project as well as his continued commitment and demonstration of innovation and academic ambition at ARU. Energy in Water is a European Strategic Cluster Partnership, which aims to nurture and harness the growth and innovation potential of small and medium-sized enterprises across Europe.
Michael coordinated and led the original submission for Energy in Water and is the Principal Investigator. The project has significantly enhanced our university’s international reputation and reach to the point that we are regularly being invited to join large project consortia.
Rachael has made a significant contribution to our Equality, Diversity and Inclusion agenda by re-energising and introducing new Staff Inclusivity Networks over the last 18 months. She was instrumental in re-launching and rebranding our Women’s Network, which holds activities throughout the year including the annual conference. Rachael has also coordinated and helped launch our BME, LGBT, Part-time and Flexible Working, and Disability Networks. She recently ran a workshop at the Universities Human Resources annual conference, showcasing how imaginative and collaborative we are at ARU. Her passion and enthusiasm have made a real difference in helping us achieve our Equality, Diversity and Inclusion objectives.
The Academic Services Team has provided staff and students with visible and easy access through acquiring and rolling out Talis Aspire’s electronic reading list. Lecturers can update their lists when necessary and students now have access to more up-to-date resources and more consistent reading lists. The project has been such a success that Talis Aspire see ReadingLists@Anglia as a leader in the field.
Through Alison’s leadership, the department, Humanities and Social Sciences, consistently achieves excellent results. Whether it’s curriculum development, recruitment, student and staff satisfaction, or generating significant budget surpluses, sustained excellence is evident. Humanities and Social Sciences has grown from 640 to 885 students, achieves excellent scores in the National Student Survey and is a significant contributor to the healthy state of our University’s finances.
Patricia Turnbull and Claudine Wetherall developed a successful and sustainable new framework for practice learning. It has been adopted in health care organisation across Essex, Cambridge and Peterborough. The framework has transformed the issues associated with mentorship and the lack support for students so that every registered nurse (including over 5,000 mentors) and approximately 1,800 nursing students benefit. Furthermore, it will provide staff with a platform to promote excellence in practice and further enhance the reputation of ARU.
Julia works as Employability Champion for Anglia Law School and has led the introduction and development of a wide range of employability initiatives which give students an ‘edge’ in the job market. Students now benefit from a series of timetabled employability sessions tailored to their specific needs as Law students and as a result have gained employment despite a national lack of placements.
Professor Martin Salisbury, Pam Smy and Hannah Webb have all contributed to the success of the MA Children’s Book Illustration. This degree has a worldwide reputation for excellence, launched careers of numerous professional illustrators and achieved an impact on the publishing industry entirely disproportionate to its size. The course is now seen as a flagship, representing our University regularly in overseas events and award nominations.
The Music/Drama Therapy team are very successful; they’ve organised conferences, secured funding and publish widely. They also collaborate with a number of international partners and secure the esteem of their national and international colleagues. The team lead the discipline in identifying research priorities and engaging with government to articulate the need for music and drama therapy. Their work considerably contributes to ARU’s reputation.
The Challenge Cup Team initiated a Varsity competition between the University of East London and ourselves. For the inaugural competition, the team ensured that almost 300 students travelling on 7 coaches competed in 21 sports fixtures in East London all in a single day. A social media campaign involved a promotional video, streaming of live footage and spin-off competitions. The event was a huge logistical challenge and involved an enormous amount of planning and collaboration by staff and students. We won the inaugural Varsity contest, a source of great pride for our University.
The Student Engagement Team have managed the LAIBS Interns programme since March 2014. It has been such a success that it has run ever since and has involved a diverse population of students from different courses, years, campuses, and levels to help build friendships across our student body. Students are able to forge links with the external business community, acquire key employability skills and gain a sense of belonging.
Grace is responsible for embedding sustainability across the curriculum and our students’ university experience. Her excellence has contributed to projects such as the latest edition of the Global Sustainability Institute’s magazine, 'So What?' and the photography exhibition ‘Whole Earth?’, which engaged students from all disciplines in sustainability. Grace’s activities are building ARU’s reputation as a leader in sustainability, one of the core goals of our Sustainability Strategy.
As a member of the Global Sustainability Institute, amongst other achievements Chris crated the highly successful Practices, the Built Environment and Sustainability Network (PBES) and leading the BYDESIGN consortium bid for funding of £3 million from the European Union. The PBES network now involves 35 senior academics from across the world and has been praised by them as ’a rich resource’ and ‘at the cutting edge’.
Naowarat created a range of video resources to support students to develop statistical skills. Since the launch in 2013, her videos have been viewed more than 30,000 times and consistently make up over 80% of the top 20 most viewed videos on MyPlayer. In addition to increased student satisfaction, the overall pass rate on her module has risen from 60% to 87% at the first attempt, with an overall pass rate of 93%.
The Vision and Eye Research Unit (VERU), led by Shahina, received one of our best REF 2014 results with its research profile rated as 100% ‘World Class’, ‘Internationally Excellent’ and ‘International’. VERU is high profile, ambitious and successful and makes a significant contribution to our growing reputation for research excellence.
Students consistently judge the iCentre’s service to be ‘excellent’ both in Cambridge and Chelmsford. Between January 14 and 15 the iCentre managed the submission of 55,223 assignments whilst under-cutting its service delivery expectation of 24 working hours, by at least 19 hours. In recognition of the team’s ‘can do’ attitude, staff have received nine WOW awards and two Made a Difference nominations across campus.
The LLB teaching team have long had a reputation for excellence. Law students have won the National Client Interviewing Competition 6 times (more than any other university), and the International competition once. In the 2014/15 NSS, LLB scored 95% across both Cambridge and Chelmsford, the highest law student satisfaction rating in the country and an indication of the team’s ability to ensure parity of student experience across campus.
Module 7 is a crucial module in our pre-registration students’ course. It takes place in the third year and builds on students’ previous learning to prepare them for the complexities and challenges of newly qualified practice. The Module 7 Team worked in partnership with colleagues at Addenbrooke’s Hospital to develop the resources and teaching practice on the module resulting in it being ranked highest in the adult pre-registration nursing curriculum, with a pass rate of over 90% at the first attempt for the most recent cohort.
Collaboration, ambition and imagination resulted in a cross-disciplinary team winning a four-year Ministry of Defence contract to deliver non-credit short courses to the Tri Services. The courses include four Leadership and Management modules from LAIBS, together with the Intercultural Communications and Terror as Crime module from ALSS. As one supporter put it: ‘I think this team is a microcosm of our University at its best; innovative, visionary, applying excellent research to change lives’.
After two catastrophes involving the withdrawal of a major funder and market failure in Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) provision, Carole had to completely redesign our Low Carbon Knowledge and Expertise in European Programme (LC KEEP) initiative. Her efforts resulted in the project contributing £3.25 million to our external income over the project lifetime, whilst being the only one in the East of England to be extended by the Department for Communities and Local Government.
Peter is a widely respected figure in the Department of Computing and Technology, having given 40 years’ expertise to our University. As Senior Technician he provides outstanding support to staff and students, and his passion and enthusiasm go far beyond his duties. Peter is known for his friendly, open approach and is a true ambassador of a quality and supportive environment. He was nominated for a Made a Difference award in 2014 too, endorsing the high regard in which he is held.
Jill receives her Vice Chancellor’s Award in recognition of the outstanding contribution she made towards Anglia Ruskin’s submission to the Research Excellence Framework. Much of her involvement was behind the scenes but her excellent administration and organisational skills provided a rock solid foundation for her colleagues. Jill’s REF role was merely one part of a very demanding workload, and she was particularly commended for her sage advice, extensive knowledge and willingness to help whenever it was needed.
The Criminology team have been involved in a range of media appearances, extra-academic activities, student-related activities and events. They have enhanced our reputation through the lively presentation of Criminology (both as a discipline and as a degree at ARU) in local, national and international contexts. They re-deploy their clear and engaging presentation style into the classroom, and involve students as active participants and researchers in their external projects. Their links to local organisations and charities also bring evident benefits for ARU and the local community.
The Get IT Sorted team, is a cross-service/faculty team with 74 members from IT Services, Student Support Services, the University Library and volunteers including five student eMbassadors. The Team recognised the need to help new students connect to and use our online services using the mobile and smart devices of their choice. Representatives from IT Services, Student Services and the University Library worked together with volunteers, including student ambassadors, to deliver a student drop-in service that ran throughout the student induction weeks on all our sites. Feedback from those students who engaged was universally excellent. Get IT Sorted has contributed significantly to our corporate goal of improving student satisfaction.
The Anglia Ruskin Mobile App team, is a cross service/faculty team with 9 members from IT Services, Student Support Services, Marketing, The University Library, The Students Union, and Faculty Learning Technologists. This team worked many late hours alongside their allocated projects to ensure the University App was delivered in time for student registration in September. The App has been a great success and the team are highly commended for making it happen. They demonstrated great enthusiasm and determination to provide an excellent service for our students. Despite the scale of the project and the challenging timescales, the team’s focus never faltered. Their ‘can-do’ attitude to overcoming obstacles is a shining example to us all.
Rupert has made a major contribution to our research activity and reputation through his work with the Vision Loss Expert Group.
Mick tirelessly contributes to our public engagement activities and was nominated as a great ambassador for Anglia Ruskin University.
Andrea was nominated for her extraordinary work in organising the hugely successful Campus Exchange Days.
Kathy was nominated for her sustained and continuous action in developing activities which have enhanced the reputation of Anglia Law School and promoted the employment prospects of our students.
Pam has made a major contribution to the reputation of our university, and the prospects of our Book Illustration students and graduates.
David and Patricia were nominated for their innovative solution to the challenge of achieving quality and parity of assessment across 5500 mentors.
Vanessa and Rachael developed programmes in the corporate education market which made a huge contribution to our targets and won two prestigious national awards.
The History team was nominated for its outstanding range of extra-academic activities and media appearances which has promoted Anglia Ruskin to a wide audience of diverse groups and communities.
Lorraine was nominated for her substantial contribution to the success of the implementation of a new version of the AWBM system, which monitors the extent of teaching and the range of activities undertaken by faculty during the year.
Peggy’s customer service is outstanding, improving communication with students and effectively supporting staff. Every day, Peggy enhances our reputation with her extraordinary interpersonal skills. Peggy goes beyond expectations by spending additional time to support professional body visits. Her department was twice voted the best in the NSS and Peggy made a major contribution to this achievement.
Alan has been the Director of the Lunchtime Concert Series over the last 20 years. The concerts have become the cultural highpoint of the week at the Cambridge campus and reinforce our status as a major contributor to the cultural and artistic life of Cambridge. The concerts regularly attract 200 audience members per week, of which one third are visitors. The unanimous feedback from the audience is positive, visitors not only appreciating the quality of the musical offerings, but also expressing gratitude that the concerts remain free.
What started as an investigation into GradeMark’s viability as an online submission and marking tool, very quickly blossomed into a viable project plan with pilots in 16 modules deployed within the Faculty, going on to include all first year students, some CPD and all distance learners. Key to the project’s success was a team of academics and administrators, who initiated and drove a solution forward that would have a material impact upon students and colleagues. Particularly impressive was the Team’s focus, belief, ability to find solutions which at first seemed formidable, and desire to significantly influence the change agenda with regards to assessment.
The team encompasses academic and support staff from across the department of Vision and Hearing Sciences (ophthalmic dispensing, optometry and hearing aid audiology). They have had many successes in 2011: it obtained the highest NSS score (NSS, 2010); was the only department with exceptional scores across all disciplines; earned two 100% and one 93% satisfaction scores; its student progression and retention rates are among the highest in the Faculty; and it received two external awards from the College of Optometrists for its excellent research.
The team created an ‘action learning' experience for students in LAIBS by involving them with Anglia Ruskin University's environmental practices.
Chris has worked on the research, development, design and installation of innovative wall graphics in the Michael A Ashcroft Building, with the aim of communicating differing messages to our various stakeholders.
Kevin's work on the RipRap project was as an excellent example of the integration of academic research, professional practice, community engagement and the dissemination of high-quality work for the wider benefit of our community.
Daniel developed the Ruskin Digital Gallery project, alongside the (analogue) Ruskin Gallery. The revamped digital/analogue Ruskin Gallery is a nationally significant space bringing together digital and analogue exhibition possibilities in a new and exciting way. Dan took over a £360k project, which in terms of size, scope and complexity, was simply outstanding.
Jackie managed a Facilities Helpdesk of three staff, who answer 26,600 calls a year, log 27,000 car parking bookings and enter and distribute 35,500 jobs for maintenance staff.
Lorrain's outstanding commitment ensured that Welcome activities, publicity materials and web-based Fresher Information gave an excellent first impression of Anglia Ruskin University.
Tony's exemplary leadership skills helped lay the foundations of the music therapy research milieu at ARU, enhancing our national and international reputation. He instigated a collaboration between Anglia Ruskin and eight universities across Europe, USA and Australia, which led to the establishment of the International Consortium for Music Therapy Research, now the global leader of music therapy research. In November 2010, the American Association of Music Therapy awarded him for ‘outstanding service to the profession of music therapy' and in March 2011, the British Association for Music Therapy recognised his ‘outstanding contribution to the academic discipline of music therapy'.
The team produced the first timetable for all students for a whole academic year, using new software that they had to learn how to use as they went along, working countless hours overtime. The team worked within an extremely tight timescale, showing absolute commitment to the goal - a remarkable effort under often difficult circumstances.
Valerie was one of Anglia Ruskin's best ‘ambassadors of English', using her expert knowledge to generate enthusiasm and build networks for literary studies in the wider regional, national and international community, beyond the remit of her role as a Reader in English. Her activities clustered around the public understanding of Victorian literature and culture, specifically Tennyson and Dickens.
Rebecca was responsible for coming up with the idea for the ‘Take a Break, Take Advantage' wellbeing events for staff, as a way of engaging with staff as part of the employee engagement and wellbeing agenda. She worked tirelessly to organise these events through actively engaging with contributors on a regular basis and coordinating the arrangements, despite this not being part of her role as HR Administration Manager.
Maurice took on running our Book Group, Ruskin Readers, on top of all his other duties as Faculty Liaison Librarian for the Faculty of Health and Social Care. He has been running the group for over two years, bringing together Library and other staff in a worthwhile, enjoyable activity, and liaising with Essex Libraries in getting a huge variety of books for the group to read.
Despite the difficult economic situation, the Faculty of Science & Technology has a continuous flow of candidates for engineering courses in Chelmsford, with more than 90% satisfaction in the NSS 2010, to a large extent thanks to Rob Walker. Rob has been a driving force behind involving colleagues in consultancy and research, used contacts in the industry to create external sources of income, and championed the recruiting of international students.
\The Ethics Panel were recognised for their efforts to promote and support research.
The Radiography team received the Vice Chancellor's Award for its innovative online Freshers' week. Freshers' week provided a means of helping students to prepare for online learning and was positively received by all users.
The advisers worked tirelessly, providing an excellent service to students over and above their role. They worked long hours to provide all of our students with the support and advice that they needed.
Emily developed the highly successful Buddy Project, which is a peer mentoring scheme where existing students mentor new students.
David nurtured and developed opportunities for art students to exhibit beyond the campus publicly in Cambridge.
Claire consistently showed an enthusiasm and energy far above and beyond the call of duty.
Rob made a significant contribution in raising the regional and national profile of the University and in encouraging businesses to collaborate with our University, beyond and above the call of duty.
Helen won an award in the category ‘Our University in the International Community' for her scientific studies on the genetic causes of different coat colours of the UK grey squirrel.
Julio won an award in the category ‘Our Students' Experience of Studying at Anglia Ruskin'for develping a programme of certifications in the industry standard music sequencing package LogicPro by Apple Computers.
The Team won an award for ‘Our University Community'. Their targeted strategy and campaign resulted in dramatic increases in both the Faculty's student applications and starting numbers.
The Team won in the category ‘Our University in the Local Community'. Eamon and Angela have been working closely with local schools, helping them to meet the learning needs of children with a diagnosis of dyslexia through developing a ‘Learning Needs Profiler'©.
Gianna won an award for ‘Our Students' Experience of Studying at Anglia Ruskin'. As programme leader for Drama for four years, and now Music and Performing Arts, she has ensured a smooth and excellent programme delivery from all staff within the different programmes.
Paul won an award for ‘Our University in the Local Community'. He was a tremendous ambassador for Anglia Ruskin, and appreciated for his commitment to improving life in the local community.
Lindsey won an award in the category ‘Our Students' Experience of Studying at Anglia Ruskin'. The award recognises Lindsey's dedication and success in coaching Anglia Ruskin's students for the National Client Interviewing Competition.
Simon won an award in the category ‘Our University in the Local Community'. Simon's contribution as Knowledge Transfer Manager has been fundamental in transforming the activity of the Knowledge Transfer Programmes Office, significantly strengthening and diversifying it.
The student support team ‘Cheap as Chips' won in the category ‘Our students' experience of studying at Anglia Ruskin University' for their innovative approach to offering students financial advice.
The ‘Music Therapy for Homeless People' team, comprising Dr Helen Odell-Miller, Billy Davidson and Helen Loth, won in the category ‘Our University in the local community'. The ‘Music Therapy for Homeless People' project was part of a wider contribution made by the music therapy team to the local community, through their clinical and educational participation in social care, health care, and with children and families, in both the voluntary and statutory sector.
Dr Chris Foulds, FSE
Dr Baris Isikguner, ALSS
Dr Handy Tan, LAIBS
Dr Sarah Waugh, FSE
Canvas L&T Collaboration Team: Uwe Richter, AL&T; Dr Egle Dagilyte, ALSS; Sian Shaw, FHSCE; Dr Mark Kerrigan, FMS; Dr Toby Carter, FST; Dr Steve McDonald, LAIBS
The Department of Education in Chelmsford, FHSCE
Mrs Joanne Corney, FMS – Highly commended
Compliance Team, Office of the Secretary and Clerk – Highly commended
The Learning Technology Unit, LAIBS – Highly commended