The teaching environment of the year award goes to the University of Southern Denmark. The university was given the award for its extensive efforts to create a better study and teaching environment for students
The 2013 teaching environment of the year award goes to the University of Southern Denmark.
The prize is awarded annually to schools or other educational institutions in Denmark that have made a special effort to improve the teaching environment for pupils or students, and this year the University of Southern Denmark is the recipient of this prestigious award for its Students in Focus project.
Since early 2011, Students in Focus has sought to improve the study and teaching environment for the university’s 25,000 or so students.
Jesper Strandskov, Dean of the University of Southern Denmark and chairman of the project steering group, comments:
“We’re greatly honoured to find that this major project, launched 18 months ago, has been noticed externally. This is an amazing recognition. But above all, we’re delighted about the good results we’ve already achieved, which are making life easier for our students and making the university a better place to study.”
Jesper Strandskov highlights aspects such as the improved study services in several of the university’s campus villages. For example, at the Odense campus – the university’s largest, with just under 20,000 students – a single point of contact has been established for IT services, the Danish students’ Grants and Loans Scheme (SU) and careers advice.
Previously, these facilities were dispersed all over the campus, which often meant students had to go to several different places to get help. Now there is a single point of contact, staffed by full-time employees and student helpers.
Enthusiastic students
Altogether, Students in Focus has overseen some 20 different sub-projects, each of which, in its own way, has put the spotlight on enhancing teaching and the study environment.
A key hallmark of the process is the active participation of the students to improve their own student life. Students are involved in all the sub-projects, so the ideas and developments come from the bottom up.
The fact that the students have a major influence on their own study and teaching environment was singled out by the judges as a particularly positive feature. Among other things, the panel’s citation stated that Students in Focus “has greatly enhanced the students’ perception of SDU as a whole and especially the academic benefit they derive”.
Peter Lykkegaard Hansen, chairman of the student body Syddanske Studerende, wholeheartedly agrees. He finds a great deal of enthusiasm for the project among the students.
“Seeing the university from the point of view of the students and taking our starting point in what they get out of the various initiatives has helped to generate tremendous commitment on the part of the students. They are now experiencing what it is like to have a hand in shaping their own study and teaching environment,” Peter Lykkegaard Hansen explains.
The Danish Centre of Educational Environment (DCUM) under the Ministry of Education is behind the award, which is given annually to four educational institutions in Denmark. The University of Southern Denmark won this year in the category of “further education study programmes”.
The prize includes a cheque for DKK 25,000.
21.06.2013
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