Read the latest Common Awards student bulletin
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1. Upcoming Dates
7th April - TEIs to ask Common Awards students to send any feedback for the Management Board to the CAMB student representatives
11th April – Student Survey 2025 opens
28th April – Webinar on Disability and Theology
2. Student Event
Building on and learning from the student conferences of 2024, the Durham University Common Awards team plans to host two identical Saturday/24-hour student conferences in 2025 on the topic of ‘How to use Artificial Intelligence well’.
The first student conference has taken place on 14/15 March at Sarum College, the next date will be:
Wilson Carlisle Centre (Church Army), Sheffield: 5th/6th September 2025
Canon Dr Gary Wilton has written to TEIs with further details of how to nominate students for these events.
Each TEI is invited to nominate two of their students to attend.
The purpose of the conference is to enable students to benefit from an inter-TEI learning experience on a contemporary and fast-developing topic. TEIs may nominate candidates studying for any Common Awards programme.
Common Awards will meet all conference costs including accommodation and meals. Funding will also be available to help with travel costs where needed.
3. Common Awards Webinar Series
The following Common Awards webinar, which are free for Common Awards staff and students, will take place on:
Disability and Theology
Monday, April 28th at 2pm
Please use this link to join the webinar, which will be held on Microsoft Teams
The Common Awards team is delighted to host Dr Naomi Jacobs and Rev Dr Hannah Lewis for a webinar discussing Disability Justice and Theological Education.
Naomi Lawson Jacobs (they/them), who is disabled and neurodivergent, is the co-author of At the Gates: Disability, Justice and the Churches (Darton, Longman and Todd, 2022). Based on participatory research with disabled Christians, the book grew out of a PhD thesis in religious studies. Naomi is a research associate at Manchester Metropolitan University. They are currently editing a volume of disability theology written by disabled people, as well as co-editing a special issue of a disability studies journal on social-scientific research on religion and disability. Naomi is a trustee for Disability Rights UK and sits on the Church of England’s Neurodiversity Working Group.
Revd Dr Hannah Lewis is a Deaf priest, bilingual in BSL and English, currently working in Oxford diocese. She is also a freelance researcher, writer and presenter. Her PhD thesis was published as Deaf Liberation Theology (Ashgate, 2007) and she has published a number of journal articles and book chapters since then, most recently in Challenging Contextuality: Bibles and Biblical Scholarship in Context ed. Louise J. Lawrence, Peter-Ben Smit, Hannah M. Strommen, Charlene van der Walt (OUP, 2023).
The webinar will take place online on MSTeams on April 28th 2025 from 2 pm to 4 pm. This webinar will include breakout groups and group discussion. BSL interpretation will be available.
The webinar leaders would appreciate knowing any key questions or discussion points you would like to raise beforehand. Please feel free to email Anupama (anupama.m.ranawana@durham.ac.uk) with any questions you might like to raise.
If you would like to be placed in a BSL only breakout group, or have any accessibility needs, please email Anupama at the email address above.
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We are pleased to announce that recordings of three recent webinars are now available online:
Neurodiverse Learning in Adult Theological Education (10th February 2025) https://youtu.be/iEuUT_WkzXI
God on the Move: Gypsy Roma Traveller (GRT) Theology and Ministry (7th March 2024) https://youtu.be/iSv1iMC2eSk
Knowledge is Power: Justice and Theologising in ’The Global South’ (7th May 2024) https://youtu.be/77KKJH8
4. Student Feedback to the Management Board
Common Awards students at all TEIs may provide feedback to the Management Board at any time, via either your own TEI student representatives, or via the Common Awards Student Representatives. The Board takes the issue of anonymity very seriously; individual students will not be named in any student feedback considered by the Board, and any identifying information will be removed before feedback is considered.
The next meeting of the Management Board will take place in early May. If you would like to contact the Common Awards student representatives their details are as follows:
Examples of the types of student feedback that it would be appropriate to be raised at the level of the Management Board:
o For example: do students feel there is a sufficient range and depth of modules available? Are the assessment methods balanced and appropriate and is it clear what is expected of students for each assessment type? Do students feel the programmes allow them to develop the necessary skills and subject knowledge?
o For example: are these processes clear and unambiguous to follow? Is sufficient information provided?
o For example: what things do students feel are going well and are there any areas that could be improved? Are there any areas of good practice that they wish to highlight?
We wouldn’t expect to take student feedback to the overarching Management Board regarding TEI-specific issues, such as issues relating to the resources, staffing or programme delivery at any individual TEI. These types of issues should be considered at TEI Management Committees.
5. Student Feedback – Common Awards Student Survey (CASS)
As part of the Common Awards partnership, Durham University runs an annual survey for all students currently registered on any of the Common Awards programmes which it validates. The survey provides you with the opportunity to provide anonymous feedback to your TEI. The results of the survey are shared with TEIs to help enhance the student experience.
The survey includes questions on the learning and teaching experience, academic and pastoral support, the learning resources available, and the student voice. You will also have the opportunity to provide free-text comments on your overall experience at the TEI.
Your TEI will contact you in March each year of your programme to request permission to share your email address with the University for this purpose (on the basis of legitimate interest, in GDPR terms). You will be given an opportunity to opt out of sharing it, and can opt out of completing the survey at any time without your responses being included in the dataset.
For further information on the Survey, please see the relevant Common Awards webpage.
6. Call for Papers - The Anglican Eastern Churches Association
The Anglican Eastern Churches Association is a major ecumenical link between the Church of England and the Churches of the East. It facilitates liturgical, academic, diplomatic and social dialogue and ties between the churches.
Its journal, Koinonia, looks to publish work which shares the gifts of churches for the benefits of all, particularly work which opens up either Anglican Church thinking and culture or Eastern Church thinking and culture, to facilitate dialogue and mutual understanding. These can be more academic pieces, or more informal but informative pieces, accounts and reflections.
Themes for 2025 are:
Publication specifications are here, along with some past editions of the journal: https://www.aeca.org.uk/publications.html
For enquiries and submissions, please email editor.koinonia@outlook.com
7. Common Awards Student Guide
The ‘Welcome to Durham University’ Student Guide has been produced by the University for students starting new programmes with a Common Awards institution, and is updated each year.
This guide has been created in response to the Common Awards Student Survey feedback, to help improve students’ understanding of the Common Awards partnership, the relationship between their TEI and the University, the role of the University in their time as a Common Awards student, and any key information they may find useful. The guide is intended to complement induction information already shared by TEIs.
8. Further Information
The Common Awards website contains a section aimed at students which you may find useful, particularly the pages on what Common Awards can provide to you as a student, and what your TEI can provide.
If you would like to contact the Common Awards team you may do so via your TEI’s ‘key contact’, or by emailing us directly on common.awards@durham.ac.uk
Thank you,
The Common Awards Team
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