Excellence in teaching

Professor Andrew Brennan (Department of Philosophy, Faculty of Arts), Associate Professor Rob Fraser (Agricultural and Resource Economics, Faculty of Agriculture), and Dr. Sarah Lumley (Department of Geography, Faculty of Science) received the Excellence in Innovation in Teaching Award in 1997. This award represents a joint effort by the Guild and the University to recognise and reward exemplary teaching.

Left to Right: Andrew Brennen, Rob Fraser and Sarah Lumley

Our innovation is the new structure, content and presentation of the unit 'Environmental Policy 405', previously taught by Dr. Malcolm Hollick of the Department of Environmental Engineering. The unit was developed for Environmental Engineering students. With the subsequent development of the B.Sc. (Environmental Science), this unit was also offered to science students. During this time the Faculty of Agriculture developed the unit Resource Policy Analysis 200 for its Natural Resource Management students, while Geography was including aspects of environmental management in its existing unit, and Philosophy was introducing some of its students to issues in environmental ethics. As a consequence, students in four faculties of the University have been receiving either specialist instruction in limited disciplinary aspects of environmental policy, or non-specialist instruction across disciplinary aspects.

When Dr. Hollick decided to retire, it created the opportunity for the various disciplinary specialists to investigate the scope for presenting a truly interdisciplinary unit. With the co-operation of the Department of Environmental Engineering, Environmental Policy 405 was chosen as the vehicle for the innovative teaching to students from at least four faculties. Trans-disciplinary material is presented by specialists drawn from three faculties and each disciplinary component is designed not only to complement the others, but also to show how problems posed in one discipline area become the focus of study in subsequent areas.

We see our innovation as having the following benefits:

• First, compared with the previous learning experiences of students receiving tuition in the area of environmental policy, students completing the new Environmental Policy 405 are provided with an integrated set of material by co-operating specialists.
• Second, the unit Environmental Policy 405 is taught by the existing teaching resources of the University, essentially through the integration of existing teaching activities.
• Third, women represent about 10% or less of teaching staff in the Faculties of Engineering and Mathematical Sciences, Science and Agriculture, whereas between 20% and 50% of students in these Faculties are women. Two of the lecturers in Environmental Policy 405 are women (Dr. Laura McCann and Dr. Sarah Lumley), with the opportunity to include a third (Dr. Clare Palmer, a post-doctoral fellow in Environmental Ethics). By bringing together female academics from different faculties, this unit provides all students with a greater opportunity to benefit from having access to female role models, and female students in particular to feel more "included".
• Finally, we think the potential for wider application of our initiative exists across a broad range of trans-disciplinary study areas. Apart from further application in the environmental field as identified in the recent review of the three 'Green' Degrees, opportunities for interdepartmental teaching exist for example in areas such as cultural studies, women’s studies, biotechnology and information technology. Given this potential, we were delighted to win the Excellence in Innovation in Teaching Award, thereby encouraging other academics to follow our initiative.