Medicine recognised with a 2014 ASPIRE Award of Excellence in Student Engagement

The ASPIRE program for student engagement utilizes peer reviewers from around the world who have distinguished themselves for their experience and understanding of student engagement. Each application is sent to three independent panellists who review a school’s application and separately record their observations.

Southampton submitted their application earlier this year, and the peer reviewers were very impressed with the thoughtful and thorough preparation of the application. ASPIRE commented that “Aspects of the Faculty of Medicine’s engagement with students that were particularly impressive were numerous, including the consistent involvement of students, with full voting privileges, on various curriculum management and student assessment committees. The examples that were provided in the application nicely demonstrated how the student input had led to constructive change. This was quite compelling. The faculty evaluation process that used student input was also seen as a strength as well. All reviewers simply loved the “you said….we did” annual report back to students that helped them see the power of their feedback and thus, Southampton, has much higher response rates even in the later stages of the student’s experience with the school.”

ASPIRE also told us that the reviewers worked especially hard in the area of trying to find areas that the school might consider working on to further enhance student engagement. “Really, they tried very hard and came up with very little except to hope that Southampton takes every opportunity possible in national and international medical education meetings to share their practices with others.”

ASPIRE thanked Southampton for taking the time to complete the application process and to share with them our accomplishments.

Chris Stephens (pictured), Associate Dean for Education said: “Huge congratulations to everyone involved in the process, we would especially like to thank those who wrote the application, Shelley Parr, Linda Turner, Kathy Kendall, June Abay, Alex Oldman and those who helped collate the info, especially the SAA team, Medsoc president, Ellie Seaby and ex-medicine presidents for their statements, those that read and gave feedback on the draft and all the students and staff who are responsible for all the excellent examples we compiled!”.