Key elements of our student success strategy include ensuring that our students have a positive experience with us, promoting a sense of belonging, and providing opportunities to utilise their creativity. This also neatly dovetails with our Education Without Boundaries policy, specifically:
Empowering our students to use their lived experience to stand out in their chosen vocation in the workplaces of tomorrow.
Our work around undergraduate research usefully illustrates this. In the Faculty of Liberal Arts and Sciences (FLAS) there is much evidence of students being encouraged and supported by staff to showcase their creative excellence via their research, which is facilitated by our Office of Undergraduate Research, and within programme curriculums.
Our BA Animation programme
One such example is in our BA Animation programme, situated in the School of Design, (FLAS). Here, the emphasis is very much on student-led learning. In the words of BA Hons Animation Programme Leader, Dr Olive Mag.Gingrich:
Students across all year groups are able to choose their own aesthetic, artistic and technical focus while applying taught transferable skills to their practice.
Effectively, they have a mix of the freedom to express themselves in their work, but in so doing, they are given outstanding support in their endeavours. What is being practiced here, also chimes very closely with the teachings of bell hooks, a celebrated Black feminist, who maintained the importance of educating as a practice of freedom. Such an approach suggests that education is ‘not merely to share information [in a top down manner], but to share in the intellectual and spiritual growth of our students’ (hooks 1994:13). Moreover, it encourages students to be ’active participants, not passive consumer[s]’ (hooks 1994:14)
‘Our Kid from the North of the South of the M1 River’
I have had the pleasure of collaborating with this fantastic group of students and staff, specifically Dr Julie Watkins, Min Young Oh and Olive Mag. Gingrich, on a project entitled ‘Our Kid from the North of the South of the M1 River’, an auto/biographical animation film, which charts my journey from being an inquisitive (some may say naughty) child who learned/saw the world in unconventional ways, to professorship. The project was one of my many pipe dreams, nevertheless, I was determined to see it translated into reality, though I did not know how this would happen. An opportunity, however, arose, in January 2024, when I was invited by the Animation team to give a lecture on my research around auto/biography, and its application to animations. We explored how such an approach would further enhance understandings of how they could connect their ‘selves’ and identities to their creations.
Following the lecture, we had a Q&A session where one student asked about some of my other research, and what was next. I shared my vision of producing the film and my dream of creating something that would hopefully inspire other Black female academics to become professors, especially given the limited numbers. I was also keen to emphasise the importance of maintaining our authentic selves as we progress in our careers, and in life more broadly.
Now, despite having a bit of Chutzpah, I would like to stress that I did not ask the students to make the animation/film for me! In fact, when I announced it, staff and students literally bit my hands off in their offers to help, which I was very pleased about! Following this, we met weekly over sustenance of the junk and fruit variety, to discuss our ideas and the next steps. At each stage, I explained elements of my vision, which more polite people would say were ‘different’, and the less kind ones might regard them as ‘off key’. Yet, the students used their brilliance, initiatives and creativity to produce exactly what I described. Plus, images and short sequences of animation were always ready by the next meetings.
On 26 May our students, Olive Mag.Gingrich and Min Young Oh and I travelled to Nottingham where I was born and raised. In so doing, they filmed me sharing my reflections on the areas which represented the milestones of my journey. These included the house my parents bought in the late 1960s, and where a few years later, I had my first experience of racism; my nursery and primary school, where my unconventional approaches to things started to take shape. This was a wonderful experience, where again the students demonstrated their brilliance.
They certainly kept me on my toes, and ensured that all shots and my commentary ran smoothly. Latterly, they led on organising sound studio sessions at Stockwell Street, where I recorded the voiceovers, to ensure the best possible sound quality. All of this did involve many, many takes, but I was very happy to be guided by them, so that we could produce something to the best possible standard. It has been pleasing to hear about what the students have gained from this collaboration:
I just wanted to say this is my first experience doing an animation project that was outside of class and it’s been a great experience ! You made the atmosphere so comforting and welcoming, so thank you.
Empowering and supporting our students to achieve excellence
On 19 June, the animation was shown at the Greenwich Picturehouse as part of the Movement Festival hosted in conjunction with LCC, University of the Arts, London . This was one of the proudest moments of my time at Greenwich for many reasons. Firstly, it demonstrated the excellence of our students. Secondly, it also showed what can happen when staff empower, and support students. Finally, it illustrated their creativity in knitting together Sociology and Animation, which might be considered as disparate subject areas. Taken together, this kind of work completely epitomises student success.
I want to take the opportunity to say a HUGE thanks to our BA Hons Animation Students, who include the following: Eleni Charalampaki, Andy Anisimenko, Shayma Fouad, Karol Dyderski Margarethe Fredriksen, Maria Reyes, Caterina Lum, Loren Hykaj, Elizabeth Wright and Dan Dyer. And another massive shout out must go to to Dr Olive Mag.Gingrich; Dr Julie Watkins and Min Young Oh, who have nurtured our students brilliance.
By Professor Louise Owusu-Kwarteng
