May 2022 Bulletin

See in Microsoft Sway

1. Upcoming Deadlines
2. Congregation June 2022
3. Common Awards Student Survey
4. Durham University Board of Examiners (Overarching)
5. Annual Conference for Theological Educators 2022
6. TEI Good Practice Stories
7. Staffing Update
8. Further Information

 

1. Upcoming Deadlines

3rd May - Common Awards Student Survey opens 

5th May - Common Awards Management Board 

27th May - Deadline: TEIs to submit Curriculum Development requests for programme and module changes 

27th May - Congregation Registration closes

 

2. Congregation June 2022

The deferred 2022 and 2021 Congregation Ceremonies for Common Awards students are scheduled for 27th June 2022.  TEI Key contacts were sent instructions for the June 2022 graduation registration process in an email sent on 25th April 2022. 

Students

• Students eligible for the deferred 2022 graduation will be invited to attend the graduation ceremony at 1.45pm on 27th June 2022, at Durham Cathedral.   
• Students eligible for the deferred 2021 graduation will be invited to attend a graduation ceremony at 3.45pm on 27th June 2022, at Durham Cathedral.   

Registration is now open and closes on 27th May. Students and staff are reminded that students are not allocated tickets on a first come, first served basis. All students will be allocated 2 guest tickets, regardless of when they register. Students have also been invited to attend a celebration event at St John’s College following the second ceremony. 

Students wishing to attend the congregation ceremony and graduation event may register using the registration link provided in the letters sent to TEIs. 

TEI Staff 

Members of staff in TEIs are also welcome to attend the Common Awards graduation ceremonies and celebration event.  

In addition, members of staff in TEIs who hold an undergraduate degree are eligible to participate in the academic procession for the Common Awards students.  

TEI staff: please use this booking form to register your attendance at the Common Awards graduation ceremonies/academic procession and celebration event: https://forms.office.com/r/btWuBTghRJ  

The form will close on 27th May. 

Action required

If you have not already done so, please circulate the letters to students following the instructions sent to TEIs on 25th April, and please share the staff registration link above with TEI staff. Thank you. 

3. Common Awards Student Survey

The annual Common Awards Student Survey allows students to provide feedback on their academic experience (on areas including: learning and teaching, study support, learning communities, equality, diversity and inclusion, and student voice). Thank you to all TEIs for providing student email details to us on time to enable us to facilitate the survey. 

As we continue to follow-up the recommendations of the From Lament to Action report, the Common Awards Management Board approved the addition of four new questions on the survey from 2022. We believe that they will help us to our track progress against four of the main priorities that we identified after publication of the report. The additional questions are as follows (students will be asked to indicate to what extent they agree with the following statements): 

• I believe my course overall has regularly included engagement with a variety of voices from across the global church; 
• I believe my course overall has regularly included engagement with a variety of Minority Ethnic / Global Majority Heritage voices from the UK; 
• I believe my course overall has engaged appropriately with issues of race and racism; 
• I believe my TEI would handle reports of issues of racism in a safe, timely, transparent and supportive manner.     

Please contact the Common Awards Team if you would like the full list of questions included in the survey. 

The 2021/22 Common Awards Student Survey will run from Tuesday 3rd May – Friday 27th May 2022. These dates have been chosen as they: are after the NSS has concluded (which affects several TEIs); are before most courses finish for the academic year; and provide Durham with time to analyse the survey results to feed into TEI ASE processes. 

The survey will be entirely managed and analysed by Durham, with TEI-specific results shared with each TEI over the summer. The survey will be available to all students registered on Common Awards programmes in 2021/22.  

 

4. Board of Examiners

The Overarching Board of Examiners are due to be held on September 1st (Summer) and December 1st (Winter), 2022.

We therefore ask that TEIs hold their own Board of Examiners no later than 5th August 2022 (Summer) and 4th November 2022 (Winter). This allows the Common Awards Team enough time to process the data received from TEIs, and resolve any queries, before the Overarching Board of Examiners.

TEI Boards of Examiners 

You can find updated TEI Board of Examiner agenda and minutes templates for 2021-22 on the Templates and Forms page of our website.  

As there is no Covid-19 safety net policy for 2021-22, TEIs will not be expected to undertake any additional Covid-19 related analysis or provide any Covid-19 related data for modules and assessments taken in 2021-22. However if the TEI Board will be considering any marks for assessments taken in 2020-21 please follow the 2020/21 ‘Academic Safety Net process’ as indicated in the template agenda. Please contact the Common Awards Team if you have any questions about this, or wish to go over any details before your Boards. 

Serious Adverse Circumstances 

TEIs are reminded that where students have been seriously affected by Covid-19 on an individual level in 2021-22, then the Serious Adverse Circumstances may be appropriate. 

Detailed information on how TEIs can support students who disclose serious adverse circumstances, and the process for submitting this information to TEI Exam Boards and to the University can be found here: https://www.durham.ac.uk/departments/academic/common-awards/policies-processes/exams/tei-board/sac/ 

Action required:

• Please submit TEI Board of Examiner's dates to the Common Awards team, if you haven't already done so. 
• Please use the updated agenda and minutes templates on our website for your Board meetings this year. Thank you 

 

5. The Annual Conference of Theological Educators 2022

The Annual Conference for Theological Educators 2022 will be held at College Court, the University of Leicester between 4-6th July 2022.

The theme of the conference is ‘Learning for the Whole of Life.’

This covers three main ideas:

• Lifelong learning (i.e., learning for the whole duration of one’s life)
• Holistic learning (i.e., learning that includes every dimension of one’s life)
• Community-wide learning (i.e., learning that includes all the members of the church)

This year’s conference is a hybrid conference. This conference is available

• Either on-site in Leicester or online, for staff
• Online only for students

Before booking your place, please note that not all on-site sessions will be available online.

For more information, including booking, please visit the conference webpage.

 

6. TEI Good Practice Stories

The Common Awards Team are working on developing a TEI Good Practice section on our website, sharing examples of good practice as highlighted by TEIs themselves in ASE reports, ULOs and External Examiners. We would like to particularly highlight some examples in the form of longer TEI good practice stories, to be featured in bulletins and the website. 

Action required: 

Please get in touch with the Common Awards team if you have a good practice story that you think could be featured in the bulletin and website. Thank you. 

 

7. Staffing Update

• We are delighted to welcome back  Emma Harrington (Assistant Quality Manager), who returned from maternity leave on 26th April; 
• We are also delighted to welcome Jo McKenzie as Lecturer in Theology and Ministry for 12 months, a post created as cover for Frances Clemson; 
• Leaona Clarkson will sadly be leaving the University on 5th May to take up a position closer to home at the University of Sunderland. Interviews for her replacement will be held at the end of May 2022; 
• Following the announcement that Dr Eve Parker is moving on to take up a new role at USPG, we are advertising for a new Postdoctoral Research Associate in Theological Education. This is a full-time post, due to run from September 2022 to August 2024. Full details are available at: Job Description - Postdoctoral Research Associate in Theological Education (22000655) (taleo.net) 
• The Common Awards administrative team will return to the office from 12th May, initially for two days a week as part of the University’s hybrid working pilot. Our office days are Thursdays and Fridays, when we can be reached on 0191 334 3180. 
• The Common Awards office will be closed on Friday 6th May until approximately 2pm, whilst the admin team are participating in a team volunteering session at a local food bank. 

 

8. Further Information

The full 2021/22 academic calendar is available here. The 2022/23 Calendar is under construction and will be shared with TEIs when available.

With thanks,

The Common Awards Team