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University of Bath - National Teaching Award for Professor and his former student
[June 13, 2014]

University of Bath - National Teaching Award for Professor and his former student


(ENP Newswire Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) ENP Newswire - 13 June 2014 Release date- 12062014 - One of our computer science lecturers and his former student have both been selected for prestigious national teaching awards for their work in higher education.



Professor James Davenport, Hebron and Medlock Professor of Information Technology at the University's Department of Computer Science, and Dr Tom Crick, Senior Lecturer at Cardiff Metropolitan University have been awarded National Teaching Fellowships by the Higher Education Academy (HEA), the most prestigious awards for excellence in higher education teaching and support for learning.

Professor Davenport has taught at Bath for over 30 years where he has led the development and taught the programming component of the Programming and Discrete Mathematics course, run at Bath to teach programming to Mathematics students.


He is Director of Studies of the national Doctoral Taught Course Centre in High Performance Computing, teaching necessary skills to research students from a variety of science and engineering backgrounds.

Professor Davenport said: 'It is a great honour to be awarded a National Teaching Fellowship. Bath is a research-led university, but teaching is also very important.

'The course of which I am most proud, and am unit leader for, Programming and Discrete Mathematics, is team-lectured by three professors, leading over 20 teaching assistants in delivery to 300 students. This is not easy, but is worth doing well, and I am glad that this success, along with many others, has been recognised in this way.' Dr Crick completed his undergraduate degree in Computer Science at Bath in 2004 and stayed on to do a PhD before continuing his research and teaching at Cardiff Metropolitan University.

He said: 'The time I spent at Bath as an undergraduate, PhD student and post-doctoral researcher laid the foundations for excellence in teaching, especially in changing perceptions and profile of the discipline. With recent significant changes to computer science education in the UK, it's superb that Professor Davenport and I have both been recognised with these awards.' The successful National Teaching Fellows (NTFs) were chosen from over 180 nominations submitted by higher education institutions across England, Northern Ireland and Wales. Each will receive an award of GBP10,000 which will be used to support their professional development in teaching and learning or aspects of pedagogy.

Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Teaching & Learning) Professor Bernie Morley said: 'Here at Bath we are proud of our excellence in teaching and learning and I'm delighted that Professor Davenport has been recognised in this way.' Previous winners from the University of Bath include Dr Gary Lock (Department of Mechanical Engineering) in 2011 and Dr Alan Hayes (Department of Computer Science) in 2009.

The scheme is funded by the Higher Education Funding Council for England, the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales, and the Department for Employment and Learning in Northern Ireland, and is open to staff whose teaching or support roles enhance the student learning experience at institutions in England, Northern Ireland and Wales.

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