Essex Business School lecturer awarded Excellent Educator Award 2019

Marianna Marra, Lecturer in Management Science at Essex's Southend-on-Sea campus, has been awarded the Excellent Educator Award at the 2019 University of Essex Excellence in Education Awards.

The awards, which took place on 9 May, saw Marianna claim her award of a £1000 prize to be spent on professional development activities.

Marianna said of being recognised as an Excellent Educator:

“I am honoured and very proud of receiving this award in recognition of my innovative approach to module design and the integration of employability and skills development. I am pleased of working at Essex Business School and working in such a stimulating environment. I feel supported by excellent colleagues, committed to delivering excellent research and teaching.”

“I care a lot about students’ learning experience and I do as much as I can to improve this, year by year. Most of my effort is dedicated to embed my research interests and my own research into my teaching practice. To do so, I try to update my teaching material every year with insight from new research published by top scholars in the field of interest. I encourage students to “think outside the box” in order to develop critical thinking. I also try to let students be aware of the skills and expertise requested by the job market. I also try to create a link between graduated students and current ones, by inviting the former to join my lectures and share their experience with new students.”

Dr. Svetlana Warhurst, Director of Education at Essex Business School said of Marianna:

"We are incredibly proud of Marianna and her achievement. Her commitment to the engaging education of her students is clear for all to see and she deserves a huge congratulations for the time and work that she puts into delivering a creative curriculum. Congratulations Marianna!"