Staff and students celebrate 20 years of peer support recognition

11 May 2018

The annual celebration evening took place on 2 May at the Renaissance Hotel

The event recognised the students and staff members who work to provide all first-year undergradautes with either PASS or Peer Mentoring in their subject area, along with a University-wide range of Peer Led initiatives.

Chancellor Lemm Sissay presented the Outstanding Contribution Awards and gave an incredibly rousing reading of his poem Making a Difference. 

Professor Clive Agnew, Vice President for Teaching, Learning and Students, gave a welcome speech to almost 200 students and over 50 staff members attending the event, and Dr Simon Merrywest, Director for the Student Experience, closed the event, thanking everyone for their hard work throughout the year. 

Of over 1900 volunteers within the Peer Support programme, 31 individual staff and students received the Outstanding Contribution Award for their leadership, innovation and creativity within their role. 

Winners of the highly anticipated ‘Scheme of the Year’ Awards were also announced. For PASS, Aerospace Engineering PASS were the winners, and for Peer Mentoring the award went to German Studies. This year also was the launch of a new award; The ‘Scheme to Look out For’. This award was for a scheme that had demonstrated resilience and genuine innovation throughout the year. The first PASS winner was Linguistics and English Language and for Peer Mentoring it was English Language, American Studies and Creative Writing.

The Distinguished Achievement Award was presented, for only the second time, to Professor Louise Walker, School of Mathematics, in recognition of her ongoing and unfaltering dedication and passion to develop Peer Support and Student Engagement.

The 20th Annual Event was a huge success and thoroughly enjoyed by all who attended in recognition of the hard work, dedication and passion students and staff give to their roles in peer-led activity across the University.