Senior Lecturer Dr SungYong Lee (National Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies) receives a teaching award from Division of Humanities Pro-Vice-Chancellor Professor Tony Ballantyne
The second annual Division of Humanities Teaching and Learning Symposium, held at the Dunedin Campus on 16 October, offered staff a full day of reflection and collaboration on ways to enhance teaching practices.
Humanities Associate Dean Academic Associate Professor Tim Cooper says the symposium – Rebuilding your ship at sea - Cultivating identity, integrity, community and collegiality in times of change – attracted a large number of staff from the Division.
“Aside from creating an opportunity to share ideas and attend workshops on a range of issues relevant to our lecturers' professional development, the symposium also celebrated how hard our teaching staff work to provide students with great learning experiences,” he says.
Associate Professor Ben Schonthal
Inaugural teaching awards presented . . .
Teaching awards were added to the itinerary this year, and inaugural recipients were Senior Lecturer Dr SungYong Lee (National Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies) and Associate Professor Dr Ben Schonthal (Department of Theology and Religion).
Dr Lee acknowledged the support of colleagues and the Higher Education Development Centre since he took up his position in 2015.
Associate Professor Cooper said the awards panel had selected Associate Professor Dr Ben Schonthal, who is on Research and Study Leave until next year, because of his energy in a range of teaching and teaching-related areas, including pioneering the pooling teaching tips initiative, which is run in conjunction with the Higher Education Development Centre.
Recipients were presented with a taonga made by local artist Blondie Ngamoki.
College of Education Senior Lecturer Dr Gill Rutherford delivered the plenary speech Re-humanising Humanities: Re-valuing the heart of our work which reminded teaching staff that the values upholding our teaching are of highest importance.
Humanities Students (from left) Roger Yan, Bella Moore and Lin Zhang.
A highlight of the afternoon was a plenary session entitled Present and future learning environments in the Humanities: A sound apprenticeship for life, 3 years in a leaky boat or something completely different?
During the session, which was chaired by Professor Ruth Fitzgerald (Department of Anthropology and Archaeology), and which featured many candid observations, students Jennifer Bell, Bella Moore, Kerrin Robertson-Scanlon, Roger Yan and Lin Zhang each presented five-minute segments on experiences that had helped or challenged their studies, and offered suggestions on ways staff and the University could enhance students' experiences and learning.
