Students celebrate staff dedication at the Student Academic Choice Awards

College staff were honoured at the second annual Student Academic Choice Awards (SACAs) hosted by Imperial College Union this week.

Nominations for the student-led awards opened back in November when all students were invited to nominate staff in eight categories including Teaching for Undergraduates, Best Supervision and Best Feedback. The categories included awards for academic staff and support staff as well as an award for Graduate Teaching Assistants.

Deputy President (Education) Nat Kempston

Nearly 600 nominations were submitted by students via the Union’s website, an increase on last year’s total.

The award winners were announced on Thursday evening in a ceremony held in the Union Concert Hall. Opening proceedings Imperial College Union’s Deputy President (Education) Nat Kempston said: “These awards are about giving our 16,000 student members the change to celebrate the best in teaching and support we have here at Imperial.”

Dr James Wilton-Ely from the Department of Chemistry received the award for Best Tutoring. He said: “It’s a great surprise to win this award. I’ve always enjoyed tutoring but it’s great to know they go down so well with the students.

“When I was a student tutoring really helped me – being able to ask things in a non-judgemental and relaxed atmosphere is so important and it’s something I’ve really tried to pass on in my own tutorials.”

Steve Tran, President, Imperial College School of Medicine Students' Union and Dr James Wilton-Ely

Collecting the award for Best Feedback, Dr Jane Saffell from the Department of Medicine said: “It was really nice to be nominated for Best Feedback because it’s an area that can be a problem. Identifying what students mean by feedback and what they expect can be a real issue.

“One of the things I’ve done is to develop ‘feed forward’ where I highlight feedback from previous year’s assignments to students before they do it themselves. This way they benefit from other peoples feedback to make sure they don’t experience the same pitfalls. In the end though I think good feedback just comes from wanting to interact with students and being clear on what’s expected of them from the outset."

Tom Wilshere, Departmental Representative, Computing and Dr Jane Saffell

Victor Boddy, Third Year Electronics Laboratory Technician & 4th Year Project Laboratory Manager in the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering won the award for Best Support Staff. He said: “It really means a lot as the award is coming directly from the students. I spend a lot of time with them in the lab and it’s just nice they appreciate what I do.

“The students really are the best thing about working here at Imperial. Their willingness to want to take part and learn something is fantastic.”

Marissa Lewis, Deputy President (Welfare) and Victor Boddy

Closing the evening’s proceedings Imperial’s Provost, Professor James Stirling, said: “Here at Imperial we strive for excellence both in our research and in our teaching. These awards are a testament to our success in this and its great see they are now a regular fixture on the College calendar.”

The SACAs were established by Imperial College Union last year to celebrate achievement and share best practice across the College encouraging more academics and support staff to try new teaching or supervision techniques. 

*All photos by Benjamin Lester