Teachers of the year at SAMF

Autumn is traditionally the season for presenting awards for teaching at the Faculty of Business and Social Sciences at SDU, and three lecturers have now been honoured for their contribution to teaching.

Lecturers are nominated for the awards either by the students or by colleagues, and three awards are granted: a main award and two special awards for strengthening the interplay between practice and developing innovative methods of teaching.

Here are the three lecturers who have been awarded this year’s teaching awards.

The passion shines through

Associate Professor Jane Ferniss from the Department of Law was named teacher of the year at the Faculty of Business and Social Sciences in 2022.

Jane Ferniss teaches tax law, and her great enthusiasm for the course and the students’ learning clearly shines through in her teaching.

Tax law is also an area that is continuously developing as a result of national and global societal developments. Therefore, the course must also be continuously developed, and the complex area of law must be made clear and accessible to the students – at which Jane Ferniss excels.

She also receives great recognition from her students for her pedagogical skills and inclusion of different teaching methods, as stated in the nomination:

- The teaching itself was conveyed with great professional knowledge and sympathetic insight. Jane manages to convey complicated legislation in a pedagogical manner. Jane is highly skilled at incorporating case law in a way that clearly supports the theoretical knowledge gained through the literature. Jane has included videos, assignments and peer grading in the course, which means that as a student you were already able to solve minor problems at an early stage and were thus involved from start to finish. Jane’s passion for her field of expertise is clearly felt.

About receiving the award, Jane Ferniss herself says:

- I am very happy to accept the award, and it means a great deal that the students have nominated me. Income taxation has great social significance. It is therefore a privilege to be able to contribute to an increased knowledge and understanding of tax legislation, such as by continuously incorporating the latest knowledge from my research directly into my teaching of our many talented, committed and socially interested students.

Practical research in the curriculum

Another lecturer who has been honoured for her special efforts is Assistant Professor Lene Heiselberg from the Center for Journalism.

She receives the special award for her involvement of practice and cooperation. Because not only has she delivered practice-oriented research, she has also included it directly in her teaching.

Lene Heiselberg has developed a completely new narrative method called ‘The Dragon’, based on her research in serial narratives. The narrative model has now also appeared on the syllabus in the new course ‘Serial narratives – a maker lab’, which is offered in a collaboration between journalism and media studies.

And it is not only the students who are taking an interest in the new tools and storytelling methods – the media industry is interested in them too. Therefore, TV 2 Fiktion, TV 2 Fyn and Heartbeats have dropped in to Lene’s teaching sessions, bringing concrete challenges to the table for which the students have had to find solutions.

Lene Heiselberg says about the award:

- I’m chuffed to bits to have been presented the award for involving the media industry in teaching, because in my view it’s a great advantage for both the students and the media industry to collaborate with each other. The students get closer to the industry and its needs, and the industry gets new ideas from a younger target group, which are based on research literature.

Dedicated to both the study programme and the students

Associate Professor at the Department of Entrepreneurship and Relationship Management, Martin Senderovitz, has also received an award for his dedication to and work on the BSc in Economics and Business Administration programme.

He receives this year’s special award for the development of innovative teaching methods.

As well as being responsible for the course, Martin Senderovitz teaches ‘Entrepreneurship and Business Understanding’ on the BSc in Economics and Business Administration at SDU in Slagelse, and he has been a pioneer in and made exceptional contributions to integrating aspects of sustainability into the business economics education programmes.

The nomination also emphasises that as a teacher he is dedicated to the students’ development and well-being, whether strengthening the students’ learning or creating positive experiences and frameworks for a good start to university life.

Finally, Martin Senderovitz has actively participated in the development of case-based teaching, which is an important part of the ‘Slagelse model’, in which students collaborate with companies from day one of their studies.

Martin Senderovitz says about the award:

- It was a great surprise when I was presented with a diploma and flowers in the middle of a lesson! I am both overwhelmed and very happy. As a teacher, you get plenty of wonderful and direct feedback from the students every day. The energy you give is returned with interest when you feel the commitment of the students. However, developing and planning the students’ learning and well-being is not a one-man achievement. It is the total collective effort and dedication that makes the difference, and I am lucky enough to have fantastic colleagues here at SDU: at Campus Slagelse, at my department and centrally. Thank you very much!

The top photo was taken when Jane Ferniss was surprised and presented with the award, as she was teaching tax law.