Learning and Teaching to the front!

2023 Vice Chancellor’s Awards for Educational Excellence celebration 

The Vice-Chancellor’s Awards for Excellence in Education are an opportunity to recognise and celebrate our achievements in teaching and learning at ANU. On 20 March 2024 educators from across ANU gathered to celebrate the recipients of the 2023 awards and acknowledge the efforts, dedication and successes of everyone who contributes to the high quality – and high impact – education experiences offered by ANU.  

For an institution that rightfully takes great pride in its research endeavours, our achievements in education can at times seem to take a back seat in comparison. The awards celebration event brought these activities to the foreground with a palpable sense of warmth and pride in our teaching and learning community. Each award was announced by a winner from the previous year – a lovely collegial approach that we hope might become an ongoing tradition. 

I felt that a highlight of the event was the opening speech from Vice-Chancellor Genevieve Bell who emphasised the role of higher education in building a just and fair society, and the urgency for such action in the wake of last year’s failed referendum. A reminder perhaps that Paulo Freire’s conception of education – never neutral, either enabling freedom or working to suppress it – is as relevant now as it was in the 1960s and 70s.  

CLT, in consultation with the Colleges, are currently renewing the design of the VC’s Learning and Teaching awards, including developing a set of award categories that are specifically aligned to support the recently launched ANU Learning and Teaching Strategy. I hope these awards will continue to grow and further illuminate the labours and successes of the ANU learning and teaching community. 

Gallery

( Click on the pictures to enlarge)

April 2024

Alex White is the Manager of the Education Communities team, in the Centre for Learning and Teaching (CLT).