WAPTE 2021 Winners
Our Warwick Awards for Personal Tutoring Excellence recognise staff who have made an outstanding contribution to the support of students through the University's personal tutoring system. Nominations come from the Warwick community. Meet this year’s winners.
Warwick Awards for Personal Tutoring Excellence |
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2021 Winners |
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Amira Elasra Senior Tutor Department of Economics |
Michael Pounds Senior Tutor/Director of Student Experience Department of Physics |
Cleo Tilley Senior Tutor Warwick International Foundation Programme |
| Amira Elasra is a Senior Tutor and Senior Teaching Fellow in the Department of Economics and leads a group of Year Tutors and all Personal Tutors within the department. In this role, she has shown her commitment to personal tutoring and supporting students through the development of new departmental mitigating circumstances webpages, tailoring personal tutor meeting forms to each cohort and setting workload models for Year Tutors. Amira is dedicated to student wellbeing and has introduced in collaboration with the pastoral team daily pastoral drop-in sessions and the design of a student welfare survey. These contributions have improved the department’s NSS scores for academic support provision. This commitment has led to Amira’s role informing departmental decision making on academic and pastoral support provision. She has actively brought forward solutions such as developing videos and guidance on successful study routines and habits to improve engagement during online learning. | Michael Pounds was appointed Senior Tutor and the first Director of Student Experience in the Physics department in 2015. Michael has strengthened the undergraduate community by helping to establish a weekly ‘Physics Café’, regular staff student lunches, and a finalist event. As the sole Senior Tutor for the Department, Michael supports over 700 undergraduates and 50 tutors, and oversees the tutorial system. His devotion to student welfare and progress is widely recognised by colleagues, including through his involvement in the Physics Welfare and Communication Group, the SSLC, and the Mitigating Circumstances Committee. |
Cleo Tilley was appointed Senior Tutor in Foundation Studies in 2019/20 and provides pastoral and academic support to students on the Warwick International Foundation Programme (IFP). With 8 years of experience as an English for Academic Purposes Tutor and Teaching Fellow, Cleo is acutely aware of the challenges that international students face when arriving at Warwick. This experience has allowed her to become a role model for her colleagues and an important source of support for students. Cleo has supported students with complex issues ranging from severe mental health issues, immigration problems, grief and stigma surrounding neurodivergence. As well as supporting Personal Tutors, Cleo co-runs a peer mentoring scheme which allows alumni studying at undergraduate level to support current foundation students, which has received positive feedback from students and the WIHEA peer mentoring learning circle. Cleo has also supported student wellbeing through setting up a new Moodle support page on wellbeing issues, organising live events and creating audio visual guides to help students understand the University Mitigating Circumstances policy. |
Enjoyed hearing about our winners? You can also learn more about the winners of the Warwick Awards for Teaching Excellence.