Enhancing the student experience

Hospitality assistants

Hospitality assistants are the staff at the University who see the students who live on campus. We spend a lot of time with the students every day. For some students who do a lot of studying online we can be the main person they have contact with. We enhance their time at the University, we encourage them to make friends and to enjoy university life. We encourage them to do their best and to have fun. We celebrate with them when they get the marks they want and we encourage them to try harder next time.

Sophie Hyde

Sophie has been instrumental in successfully launching the new Student Success Academy in the Careers service. Her drive, energy and passion has allowed the team to hit the ground running – making a real difference to hundreds of students in the Academy’s first year. She has recruited and trained her team from scratch, and devised a comprehensive programme of support for all students but with a particular focus on under-represented and BAME students. Her attitude and approach is exemplary, the Careers service and wider University are fortunate to benefit from her great talent, expertise and tireless hard work.

Amanda Berry

I recently spoke to an inspiring student who completed the Year in Enterprise programme (run by Amanda), during which they set up a business which at its peak had a £3 million turnover, employed 15 people and was completing 50 energy measure installations per week – all astounding achievements!

The student could not thank Amanda enough for her support, from gaining a place on the programme despite missing the deadline, to helping them througahout the programme and into the present day.

Division of Criminology, Sociology and Social Policy

This small team are consistently focused on innovating their teaching practice to ensure their students get the very best experience. In the past two years they have won five University teaching acknowledgements.

In 2022: Katie Coveney, Thomas Thurnell-Read and Iris Wigger received an award of ‘highly commended’ in the University’s Teaching Best Practice Awards for the case study ‘Sociological Futures: Embedding careers content in to teaching provision for finalists’. Iris Wigger was awarded a RITA (Research informed Teaching Award) for expertise in curriculum design by fostering greater links between research and teaching, and expertise in the use of learning experience to develop students as researchers.