Bloomsbury Institute Awards

Every year, through our Bloomsbury Institute Awards, we congratulate colleagues who have had an exceptional impact on our student and staff community. The awards were made at our recent teaching and learning conference, but we wanted to say a little bit more about the winners and share just why their students and colleagues value them so much.

Students nominate staff through an anonymous survey for two of our awards: the Teacher of the Year Award and The Professional Service of the Year Award. Student participation was as usual very high, and it is a real testament to the dedication and hard work of our staff that every single teacher and every professional service team received at least one nomination!

The Teacher of the Year Award went to Dr Knowledge Mpofu, Senior Lecturer in Business. Our students reserved the highest of praise for his teaching. Students remarked for example that Dr Mpofu conducts “super interesting lessons” and is “one of the most patient and intelligent teachers I`ve ever met”. “His support is incredible and equal for everyone!!”

The Professional Service of the Year Award went to our Student Engagement, Wellbeing and Success team.  This team, said students, “are just the best thing going! Support, nurturing, realisation of potential and just plain inclusion! They respond quickly and are always ready to listen and help”.

We have a further four awards where staff nominate other staff across several categories.

Ramin Nassajpour, Finance Manager, received the Innovation Award. This award is for outstanding innovation in practice to enhance the quality of the student and staff experience. Ramin was praised as someone who is “always looking for new ways or means to create efficiencies in daily tasks”. He has worked “behind the scenes and … has introduced changes which made students’ and staff lives a lot easier!!”

The Staff Community Building Award went to Tom Ironmonger, Deputy Head of School for Business and Accounting, Foundation Year Course Leader and Principal Lecturer. His colleagues remarked that: “He’s made us all feel welcome and made amazing efforts to get us feeling like a proper team”. He has “led [us] to re-design the [Foundation Year] programme and has a compelling vision for it – whereby its function is not only to equip the students with skills necessary to succeed at levels 4-6, but for the course to be valuable also on its own, equipping the individuals with useful, relevant, contemporary life skills, and inspiring them to be creative.

Donna Leonard, Academic Lead for Learning Enhancement, won the Bloomsbury Values Award. Staff commented that “the online, hybrid and in-person resources and session this person delivers demonstrate the best practice in inclusivity and creativity”. Donna has “worked with all academic teams and students, frequently mentoring staff, identifying needs and initiating projects which benefit all academic departments, positively affects other divisions and has impact externally”.

The Bloomsbury Institute Support and Enhancement Award went to the Registry team.  Their work, led by Ahmed Junaid has been exceptional this year as has the work of the individuals who make up this team. Eleonora Affronte and Giulia Rinaldi for example received praise because they “always support their other teammates and make academics’ lives so easy!” Slawomir Grzybek, Head of Quality, was noted for “ensuring that students at Bloomsbury Institute have a voice”. “Without the work and dedication that this person puts in, the student experience would not be the same!”.

Finally, the Admissions and Enrolments team – also a part of Registry – have had to work exceptionally hard over recent months and were said by colleagues to be “always happy, always smiling and always happy to advise colleagues in other departments”. Many of them are new in their roles (or have joined us, or re-joined us, relatively recently). Their dedication and commitment are an inspiration to us.

Congratulations to all our staff and especially to our Award winners.  We salute you!