UNIVERSITY NEWS LAST UPDATED : 11 AUGUST 2020
A Birmingham Professor has been handed one of the UK’s most prestigious higher education teaching awards.
Birmingham City University academicRachel Sara, who is the Oscar Naddermier Professor of Architecture, has been named among the Higher Education Academy’s 56 new National Teaching Fellows.
The accolade is recognised as the top individual teaching honour for lecturers and researchers working at universities across England, Wales and Northern Ireland.
Professor Sara becomes the 11th current Birmingham City University academic to receive the honour.
Professor Sara has been teaching for 20 years and joined the University in 2019.
She has significant experience in architecture education nationally and internationally, having taught new lecturers in architecture, led Master’s programmes, been link tutor for courses in Sri Lanka and Hong Kong, and undertaken a range of prize-winning projects to support the development of best practice.
On receiving the Fellowship Professor Sara said: "I am so honoured to have been awarded the prestigious National Teaching Fellowship for my work in architecture education.
“Climate crisis, the current pandemic, #MeToo and the Black Lives Matter movements have given an urgency to the ways in which all education needs to develop.
Professor Sara’s teaching in architecture is motivated by a desire to support a diverse range of students into the architecture profession, which is still underrepresented by women, working-class, black and minority ethnic groups.
In response, she has developed approaches to learning and teaching architecture, which develop civic agency, critical engagement with learning, and cultivate more supportive, inclusive models of education underpinned by feminist pedagogy.
During her career, she has significantly affected the teaching undergraduate, postgraduate and PhD students often well beyond the expectations of her positions.
She has engaged students with community groups outside of the university setting to undertake live community architecture projects; positioning the university as a civic ‘agent of change in the city’.
The National Teaching Fellowship (NTF) Scheme celebrates and recognises individuals who have made an outstanding impact on student outcomes and the teaching profession in higher education.
Advance HE CEO Alison Johns said: “All of the winners should be extremely proud of their achievement of what are prestigious, national teaching awards. Their work epitomises the outstanding commitment to teaching in the UK higher education sector, which this year has been more demanding than ever before.”
More information on Birmingham City University’s Architecture courses is available on the University’s Clearing website.