Winners
Nominations:
- Bryony has only been in the department a short time, but has made such a big impact already. She created the student newsletter update which definitely helped keep the sense of community with the students, particularly during this time when we cannot create that in person. She initiated our Instagram account and has so many incredible ideas for it. She brought in Pet of the Week, which boosts morale for both students and staff alike.
Bryony has often worked out of her hours to go the extra mile for students. The student newsletter was originated by her, and as a result, she has often worked on weekends or longer hours to get it done. Recently, as she knew the students would not have the same graduation experience as normal, she spent hours over her annual leave creating a stop motion video of Roland to congratulate our graduates (this can be seen on the Instagram account). This was definitely not something she had to do, but she went above and beyond to create this, and the buzz this generated from our students on Instagram was wonderful to see.
Bryony is continuously passionate about making sure we interact with students in a friendly and approachable way. We have had several meetings about upcoming events or Instagram plans in which, without fail, she has presented a series of creative and thoughtful ideas – all on top of her busy workload. She is always helpful with any student-related queries I might have, as well as being a friendly, funny and positive member colleague.
In terms of the core values, for the reasons above, Bryony absolutely encapsulates both “We make a positive difference” and “We are a friendly and helpful community”.
I would like to nominate Bryony for a Making the Difference award for her work towards developing community within the Department.
Since joining us earlier this year, Bryony had proactively put a number of measures in place to support our student community - such as Pet of the Week. However, her efforts became even more important as we moved to online working and lost that regular in-person check in with our students.
Despite a busy range of duties, Bryony set up a regular newsletter for students where she could mix together her own creativity and contributions from students and staff. These were beautifully presented and got good feedback from students - reps picked these out at meetings for praise. They also gave useful tips and reassurance to students who might be feeling anxious about the situation, with a friendly tone and offering something different to our usual communications.
Bryony also (alongside another colleague) set up an Instagram page for keeping in touch with our current and prospective students. Considering that developing our sense of community is an important action from our NSS, Bryony's efforts will go some way to helping this.
Nominations:
I would like to nominate Ed Garrett for the award, as since his arrival to the department last year, he has made numerous contributions which have enhanced not only my academic experience but the experience of many others too. He matches many of the criteria outlined as I will explain below:
Core Value 1. Ed was invited to join the editorial board of a journal however he declined the position after looking at the board and seeing no women on it. He instead replied to the journal and suggested they may find a female editor instead. This is the first experience I have had of someone turning down a role in the interest of diversity and inclusion and I think his actions must and should be celebrated.
Core Value 2 and 5. Since joining the department Ed has set up the sea level discussion group, a weekly research group consisting of ~8 people. This has greatly enhanced both my and others understanding of our research as well as the wider literature and every other week provides a social hour for a catch up where we discuss both academic and non academic topics. The group is a post-doc and PhD only group in order to create a safe space where we can talk about our research, any concerns and questions that we have without feeling pressured like we may with more senior academics. We have discussions on topics such as 'How to write a research paper' 'How to review papers', things that may seem obvious but are of great importance to the ECRs in the group. As such, this group has become vital to me and others in our progression through our PhDs. Ed also volunteered to take over the wider physical and environmental geography research group and has set up a schedule for for external speakers. His enthusiasm and contribution to these groups has gone beyond what would have been expected.
Core Value 4. Despite only being scheduled in for a half an hour meeting every week, Ed always replies to any emails his students send him on top of being a full time parent to his two children including a baby boy born earlier in the year. This sometimes means Ed's emails will come early in the morning or late at night, but he works out of office hours (and I think out of his contracted hours) in order to help us out if we need it always replying the same day or fitting in extra meetings if we want them. I believe he would do this not only for his students but anyone who asked him for help.
Overall, he has helped many of us become better researchers and I hope one day that I can be as good a mentor as he is to us. He has contributed so much to the department in the short time that he has been here and I think his hard work deserves to be recognised.