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SCCI academics celebrated at the UCL East Engagement Awards 2024
6 December 2024
The Public History MA and Dieter Deswarte, Head of Public Anthropology, were announced as winners at the first UCL East Engagement Awards, celebrating engagement between UCL and local east London communities.
Image: Public history teaching in the UCL Urban Room
The awards celebrate staff, students, partners, and projects that have exemplified impactful, meaningful and mutually beneficial engagement between UCL and the local community. Chosen from over 30 inspiring nominations from six different categories, read more about the winners from the UCL School for the Creative and Cultural Industries (SCCI) below:
Engagement Rising Star award: Dieter Deswarte, Head of Public Anthropology and Lecturer in Non-Fiction Film at UCL East
This award is for a UCL individual who has demonstrated commitment to embed engagement in their research, teaching or learning practice.
Dieter has developed a wide range of initiatives to foster inclusivity, creativity, and connection in east London. Dieter established ‘Spectra’, a curated programme of non-fiction films exploring diverse queer experiences, which has since grown into a vibrant community platform.
Dieter is also developing intergenerational storytelling projects and collaborating to support young people from underprivileged backgrounds to gain skills in creative technologies.
Dieter is a lecturer on Ethnographic and Documentary Film MA.
Outstanding Community-Engaged Learning: MA Core: HIST0867 Critical Public History
This award is for a module or course taught out of UCL East that focuses on teaching, curriculum, or students that involves community engagement.
The Public History MA, led by Dr Anna Maguire and Dr Mark Frost, champions community engagement throughout. The core course module Critical Public History provides multiple opportunities for the students to learn about community engagement practice and to work with east London communities while undertaking their coursework.
The impact is a series of mutually beneficial relationships: with students embedding themselves in local communities, and local organisations gaining from the skills, time, and alternative approaches being brought in by the students.
The winners were announced at an awards ceremony UCL East Marshgate and were chosen by a panel of engagement experts from UCL and east London local partners.
Congratulations to all the winners and nominees. A full list of the winners can be found on the UCL East website.