Professor Evelyn Welch

National Teaching Fellow 2006 Institution at the time of award - Queen Mary University of London Professor Evelyn Welch is Vice Principal (Arts and Sciences) at King's College London, having previously been Professor of Renaissance Studies at Queen Mary University of London, as well as Pro-Vice Chancellor (Teaching andLearning) at the University of Sussex. Noting that group work and assessment were still relatively rare in the Humanities, she introduced an innovative module entitled 'Ways of Looking' in 2005. The course is designed to introduce English students to the study of contemporary visual material, and asks them to question why visual images andmaterial objects, such as photographs, film, fashion, advertisements and theurban environment, look the way they do. The students work in groupsthroughout the module; there are no traditional lectures. One two-week assignment, for example, involved a mapping of Trafalgar Square, assessing its historical development and current use. The course is having a distinctive impact on student learning, offering a very different experience from the traditional lecture/seminar format. Collaborative work is still rare at graduate level in the Humanities; embedding broader career skills in Humanities doctoral work is one of Evelyn's main interests. In 2000 Evelyn was awarded funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and the Getty Foundation to build a model of collaborative research, where scholars at different stages in their career worked towards a common goal. A team of scholars from different disciplines undertook research into cost and consumption in the Italian Renaissance. Evelyn used the experience gained on this project to extend training in project management, networking and team-work to postdoctoral students at the University of Sussex. This resulted in Sussex's appointment as the UKGRAD's hub for the South-East. At Queen Mary, Evelyn ran an AHRC network on early modern dress and textiles which brought together graduate students, scholars, museum specialists, conservators and theatre professionals. As Chair of the Association of Art Historians (AAH), she continued to work with the art history community on pedagogic issues and chaired the group which revised the benchmarks for the discipline. She also chaired the management board of the Academy Subject Centre for Art, Design and Media and is now vice-chair. Evelyn Welch is a passionate believer in the fact that there is no contradiction between working as team towards a common goal and individual research. As such, she now leads a £5.5 million Arts and Humanities Research Council strategic programme: Beyond Text: Performances, Sounds, Images, Objects. See www.beyondtext.ac.uk.