Dr Siphokazi Magadla and Dr Karen Ellery were officially announced as Distinguished Teaching Award winners by the Rhodes University Vice Chancellor at a Senate meeting held earlier this month.
The awards are meant to stimulate scholarly teaching and teaching-related activities and to recognise an experienced lecturer who is an exceptional teacher in his/her discipline.
Dr Siphokazi Magadla, Senior Lecturer of the Political and International Studies Department, received the Distinguished Teaching Award for an academics with fewer than 10 years’ experience of teaching in higher education.
Dr Magadla joined the Department in 2011 after having worked as a research consultant for the Security Sector Governance programme of the Institute for Security Studies in Pretoria, focusing on the role of women in peace and security. She holds a PhD from Rhodes University in which she examined the state assisted integration of women ex-combatants into civilian life in post-apartheid South Africa.
Dr Magadla is the current Board member and Book Review Editor of the Journal of Contemporary African Studies (JCAS). Since July 2017, she serves as a workshop facilitator of the Social Science Research Council's Next Generation Social Sciences in Africa Fellowship Program. She was recently elected by President Cyril Ramaphosa to form part of a high-level review panel into the work of the State Security Agency (SSA).
The Senior Distinguished Teaching Award presented to academics with 10 or more years of experience is bestowed to Extended Studies Coordinator, Dr Karen Ellery.
Dr Ellery joined the Extended Studies Unit at the beginning of 2010, having previously worked in student academic development at the University of Witwatersrand and the University of KwaZulu-Natal for over 12 years. She teaches in the Integrated Science Concepts and Methods (ISCM) course and coordinates the Science Extended Studies Programme (SESP). Her PhD examined whether the SES programme in general, and the ISCM course in particular, offer students access to appropriate and powerful knowledge on which they can build their disciplinary majors in mainstream.
The awards will be presented at the 2019 graduation ceremonies. Dr Magadla and Dr Ellery will also be invited to give a public lecture on their work as academic teachers during the course of the 2019 year.