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1. Upcoming Deadlines
1st March – Invoices issued to all TEIs (payment terms: 30 days)
8th March – Deadline: TEIs to submit APL Credits and supporting documentation for late entrants
8th March – Deadline: TEIs to submit Module Registration Data for quality assurance checks for late entrants
8th March – Deadline: TEIs to submit photographs and data for campus card production (late entrants)
11th March – Booking opens for Student Events
15th March - Common Awards 'The Environment, Theology and Action' Webinar: Dr Ruth Valerio
22nd March – Deadline: CAMB Student Representative Election closes
25th March – Deadline: TEIs to submit Common Awards Management Board (CAMB) Student Representative Election Results to Common Awards Team
29th March – Durham’s Common Awards team announces the results of the Student Representative Election
1st April – Deadline for TEIs to submit student email addresses for the Common Awards Student Survey
2. Common Awards Webinars
'The Environment, Theology and Action'
This webinar is on Friday 15th March 1.30pm-3.00pm, please note this is a change in time, it was previously advertised at 11.30am.
Dr Ruth Valerio has written extensively on justice, environment and lifestyle issues, particularly from a Christian perspective. She is currently the I am Global Advocacy and Influencing Director for Tearfund and was previously the Churches and Theology Director of A Rocha UK, a Christian charity that works for the protection and restoration of the natural world, and she spearheaded Eco Church, which helps churches do just that. She studied theology at Cambridge and Kinds College London (PhD), and is Canon Theologian at Rochester Cathedral.
The seminar will consist of a roughly 60 minute talk from Dr Ruth Valerio by time for questions and answers.
Free tickets are available here
3. Student Events – Bookings open on 11th March
This academic year, two NEW day-conferences for Common Awards students are being hosted by Common Awards. Bookings will open on at 9am on 11th March and the links to the registration forms are as follows:
A day with NT Wright: https://forms.office.com/e/2Ee59eJZ0k
Mental Health in Ministry conference: https://forms.office.com/e/0pj6seLRNM
We would be grateful if you could share this information with all Common Awards students. Students who registered their interest in the events will be contacted with the booking details.
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Jesus, the Spirit, and the Hope of the World: A Day with N.T. Wright
26 April 2024 at St Paul’s Cathedral, London
Book your place here: https://forms.office.com/e/2Ee59eJZ0k
This FREE* day conference will be a study-day at St Paul’s Cathedral with N.T. Wright, world-renowned New Testament scholar, best-selling author, and former Bishop of Durham. Over the course of multiple sessions, he will guide students and answer questions on a variety of related topics, including: views of salvation and the eschaton; God’s creation and the new creation; apocalyptic themes in the New Testament; and how these matters inform God’s calling on the Church, in light of the Gospel. Students will also have the opportunity to see the cathedral and to meet students from other TEIs.
Download the full timetable here: St Paul's Student Conference programme.
The Speaker:
Rt Rev’t Prof N.T. Wright is Senior Research Fellow at Wycliffe Hall, former Bishop of Durham in the Church of England (2003-2010), and was formerly Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at the University of St Andrews.
*Travel expenses not included.
For more information, please visit the Common Awards website Events for Students page.
‘Mental Health in Ministry: The Theology and Psychology of Depression and Hearing Voices’
9 July 2024 at Durham Cathedral, Durham
Book your place here: https://forms.office.com/e/0pj6seLRNM
Students will come away from this FREE* day-conference with a deeper understanding of how to wisely and faithfully engage with matters of mental health. This conference focuses on two areas that have a rich tradition of study both in psychology and in the long history of Christian practice: hearing voices and depression. Our speakers will address, in each case, contemporary clinical understandings of these two experiences, their various theological interpretations, and also speak to the benefits and short-comings of each. Students will also have the opportunity to see the cathedral, the grounds of Durham University, and to meet students from other TEIs.
Download the full timetable here: Mental Health in Ministry Student Conference Programme.
Speakers will include:
Rev’d Prof. Chris Cook, former Director of the Centre for Spirituality, Theology & Health (retired in 2022), qualified doctor, former Professor of Psychology, and ordained in the Church of England.
Dr Tasia Scrutton, Associate Professor in the School Philosophy, Religion, and History of Science at Leeds University and author of Christianity and Depression.
4. Annual Conference for Theological Educators 2024
The 2024 Annual Conference for Theological Educators will be taking place on July 10th – 12th.
Bookings will open later in March; if you wish to receive a reminder when bookings are open you can register for our conference mailing list here: https://forms.office.com/e/EDgCAaaiHw
The conference will be taking place at Durham University, and the theme of the conference will be: 'Theological Education and Mental Health’
This three-day two-night conference is FREE* to all Common Awards staff (all core and associate staff who are or expect to be involved in teaching, assessing or administering Common Awards programmes in the designated Common Awards TEIs). In theological education and the ministry settings, issues of mental health are unavoidable. Each year, 1 in 4 people in the UK experience a mental health problem of some kind. This conference covers a variety of topics to support theological educators in their teaching and formational responsibilities, including:
Rev’d Prof. John Swinton, Chair in Divinity and Religious Studies (Aberdeen), RMN (registered Mental Nurse), and ordained in the Church of Scotland.
Rev’d Dr Joanna Collicutt, fellow at Harris Manchester College of Oxford University, a chartered clinical psychologist, and ordained in the Church of England.
Rev’d Jarel Robinson, ordained in the Church of England, co-chair of One Body One Faith, formerly a Methodist minister, and author of Black, Gay, British, Christian, Queer.
Dr Eve Parker, lecturer in Modern Christian Theology at the University of Manchester and author of Trust in Theological Education.
Rev’d Luke Larner, ordained in the Church of England and editor of Confounding the Mighty: Stories of Church, Social Class and Solidarity.
With worship led by Rev Prof Maggi Dawn, Professor of Theology at Durham University, advisor to the Royal School of Church Music, and former Dean of Marquand Chapel at Yale Divinity School.
For more information, please visit the Common Awards website conference page.
5. Student Representation: Elections
Candidates have come forward for student elections and each TEI individually should be holding an election process for students to vote on their chosen candidate. Following their election process, each TEI then provides the Common Awards Team with a list of all candidates who received votes in ranked order by 25th March 2024. Once ranked preferences have been received from each TEI, the Common Awards Team uses a Single Transferable Vote system to identify the candidates with the highest number of votes across all TEIs. Results will be announced on 29th March 2024.
6. Common Awards Student Survey 2024
The 2023/24 Common Awards Student Survey will run from Monday 15th April – Friday 31st May 2024. The survey will be entirely managed and analysed by Durham, with TEI-specific results shared with each TEI over the summer. The survey will be available to all students registered on Common Awards programmes in 2023/24.
Further information on providing the data required for the Survey will follow shortly.
7. Diversifying the Common Awards Curriculum
Prof Mike Higton, Dr Nina Kulberg and Dr Olabisi Obamakin shared the outcomes of the ‘Diversifying the Common Awards Curriculum’ survey (both student and staff responses). These outcomes have been shared with TEI Key Contacts. Please contact your TEI Key Contact or the Common Awards team directly to receive a copy of these summaries.
8. TEI Invoices
All TEIs will receive invoices at the beginning of March. The invoices are based on a snapshot of student records data from 1st December; all changes communicated to us before 1st December will have been reflected in the invoices. Please note that payments are expected within 30 days.
If there are any questions or queries regarding invoices, please contact the team as soon as possible.
9. Boards of Examiners
10. TEI Forum
TEI Forum members are reminded to please contact Lucy Dallas (Chair) directly with any agenda items. Forum members will be sent a registration form shortly.
11. Replacement Transcripts and Parchments
As from 1 March 2024 there will be a change in price for replacement transcripts and parchments as advised by Student Registry:
Transcripts - £12
Parchments - £35
If there are errors in documents, these changes will need to be made via Common Awards and the charge will be added to the next TEI invoice. If a student has lost their documents; they can order direct from the Online Document Store
12. Study Path Update
Further to the information provided at the Moodle Administration Update sessions, which took place in the summer, the University is currently working to install Study Path onto our student records system (Banner). Following this update to the system, students who progress from one programme to another will no longer have separate Banner IDs for each programme.
The Study Path implementation will bring about changes to the structure of our student records within Banner. Students will have only one Banner ID, which will have a record of the all the programmes of study/qualifications they take during their time with Durham University under separate Study Path numbers.
There has been a slight delay to the upgrade process since the previous issue of the Bulletin, and the update to Banner is now planned to take place between 8-18th March. The Common Awards Team will be unable to access the system during this time, therefore, please be aware that there may be some delay to processes requiring access to Banner.
The Common Awards Team will liaise with TEIs separately in relation to any students whose Banner ID will change as a result of this process. If any of the affected students wish to replace their campus card (if applicable), the Common Awards Team will be able to arrange this with the IT Service Desk at the University from 19th March. Further details will be discussed with TEIs individually.
13. Further Information
The full 2023/2024 academic calendar is available here.
With thanks,
The Common Awards Team
