The Department of Criminology at the Hillary Rodham Clinton School of Law has been selected as the winner of the British Society of Criminology (BSC) Annual Award for Excellence in Teaching Criminology.
The National Award for Excellence in Teaching Criminology is awarded by the BSC and is intended to highlight and celebrate the best practice in teaching criminology across HEIs in the UK, and is led by the BSC Learning and Teaching Network. The criteria for nominations for this award are informed by the UK Professional Standards Framework for teaching and supporting learning.
The Department of Criminology’s submission centred on embedding employability and professional development into the undergraduate curriculum. The judges deemed it to be an excellent nomination, highlighting the sustained efforts to embed employability and an impressive example of curriculum redesign and development.
Employability skills are embedded throughout the Department’s curriculum, with specialised modules such as ‘Employability and Personal Development’ and ‘Leadership and Management in Social Justice’. The delivery of the modules is enhanced by dedicated employability colleagues who look to prepare the Department’s graduates for the world of work.
In addition, the Department adopts a variety of assessment types, such as vlogs/blogs, reports, presentations, posters, essays and briefing papers, which are authentic and offer the opportunity to learn further transferable skills, without the pressure of a large number of traditional examinations.
The BSC held their Annual Conference on July 7th-9th 2021, and presented the award as part of the event. Professor Tracey Sagar, Associate Professor Debbie Jones, Dr Jon Burnett and Joe Janes collected the award on behalf of the Department of Criminology.
Speaking on what the award means for the Department of Criminology, Professor Tracey Sagar and Associate Professor Debbie Jones said:
“We are delighted to receive this award which celebrates the sustained efforts of the Criminology Department at Swansea University to equip our students with the transferrable skills for the workplace. Working with our students, we have built a strong teaching portfolio which delivers a contemporary, research-led critical understanding of crime and the criminal justice system as well as providing opportunities to acquire a wide range of new skills across the three year degree programme.”
Find out more about the undergraduate criminology degrees available at Swansea University:
- BSc Criminology and Criminal Justice
- BSc Criminology and Psychology
- BSc Criminology and Social Policy
- BSc Criminology and Sociology (coming soon)