The UK’s premier tertiary education academy has awarded two of its teaching and learning Senior Fellowships to overseas recipients for the first time, and both have gone to Flinders University academics.
Professor Mark Israel of the School of Law and Professor Iain Hay [pictured] from the School of Geography, Population and Environmental Management at Flinders have each been honoured with a Senior Fellowship by the UK’s Higher Education Academy.
On the first occasion that eligibility for the fellowships was extended beyond Britain Professors Israel and Hay are the only international recipients, claiming two from a total of six awards.
Both are former winners of Australia’s top tertiary teaching honour, the Prime Minister’s Award for Australian University Teacher of the Year, presented annually by the Carrick Institute.
In congratulating the two recipients, the HEA’s Assistant Director, Helen Thomas, said that the Senior Fellow status recognises “outstanding achievement and contribution to teaching and learning and is a significant and prestigious category of recognition”.
The HEA’s citation acknowledged Professor Hay as a leader of local and international cooperative teaching projects spanning two decades, and as a practitioner of teaching evaluation in Australasian universities. He is also co-author of an internationally read transferable skills manual for students, Making the Grade, published by Oxford University Press.
Professor Israel was commended for his promotion of collaborative and interdisciplinary learning, with a focus on “improving learning and teaching, on integrating teaching and learning with research, and on transforming relationships at all levels within higher education”. He also seeks to build ethical awareness and qualitative research skills among students and academic advisers.
“The fellowships are fantastic recognition, not just for us but also for the emphasis Flinders University places on high quality teaching,” said Professor Hay.
Professor Israel said he was delighted by the award. “It should offer more great opportunities to collaborate with lecturers outside Australia in order to build more effective ways of learning and teaching,” he said.