University of Strathclyde Medal Awards 2024 (Making a Significant Contribution to the Success of Others)

Prize: Prize (including medals and awards)

Description

People Oriented:
Mike has over 26 years’ service at Strathclyde where he has demonstrated a sustained commitment to providing learning opportunities for students and graduates that exemplifies Strathclyde as A Place of useful learning. In particular he has been a stalwart for introducing employability learning in curricular and co-curricular studies through forming partnerships with employers and Alumni. On employment as a Research Assistant in 1998 Mike began to organise co-curricular site visits to construction projects for students, to enable them to link theory to practice. Since then, he has organised and accompanied students on circa six visits each academic session. In 2010 he established a curricular Industry Mentoring initiative for our 3rd year students, to date this has involved over 1000 students, 80 employers and 300 industry mentors.

Bold:
To date Mike has given 266hrs of personal voluntary time to students through organising and hosting 133 Civil Engineering 4 Real (CE4R) workshops, with over 2500 student attendances,76 employers, and 218 industry presenters. All three initiatives provide employers with a talent pipeline and have proven success in graduate employment and summer placement opportunities. Alumni, and in particular graduates have used their contribution as evidence towards their journey to CEng. For CE4R and Constructionarium, students have demonstrated their IPD during their university studies. This has enhanced Strathclyde’s reputation with the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE). Mike has published on Industry Mentoring and CE4R initiatives in peer reviewed journals and was invited to provide case studies on both initiatives for the Engineering Professors Council (EPC). Mike has enhanced the reputation of Strathclyde through working with industry and has demonstrated an unparalleled commitment (Bold & Ambitious) to providing students with employability knowledge and skills. Mike’s personal time to run CE4R on Monday evenings is emblematic of his commitment to demonstrating Strathclyde as A Place of useful Learning.

Ambitious:
In 2010 Mike demonstrated foresight and leadership through ensuring that Strathclyde was the first University in Scotland to engage in a 5-day hands on co-curricular and experiential learning (Constructionarium) activity for our civil engineering students. Mike has championed this initiative for the department since then and this has resulted in 275 undergraduates participating and this has created circa 11000 hrs. of voluntary student Initial Professional Development (IPD) and circa £155,000 of industrial sponsorship. In 2012 Mike committed his personal time to establish a co-curricular (Innovative) programme of problem-based learning workshops (Civil Engineering 4 Real- CE4R, Monday evenings 5-7pm).

Innovative:
All the programs described are unique experiences which Mike has carefully crafted and pioneered through his enthusiasm to innovate the learning experience.
Collaborative:

All the above activities encapsulate a highly collaborative approach working closely with industry partners to implement highly valued and useful learning experience which enhance our student’s skill sets and career opportunities.

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