Design Award for College Student

Congratulations go to Dunstable College’s Hazel Snell, from the BA (Hons) in Graphic Design for Print and New Media course, who has just won Silver in the Starpack Student Awards for Best Package Design. Her winning concept for a festival pack got outstanding marks and was said by the judges to be "both fun and practical."

The awards ceremony on 22 May will take place at Carlton House and her award will be presented by the Senior Packaging Technologist from Marks and Spencer, Mark Caul. Her design will then be on show at The Cafe Royal, where it will be viewed by the contenders for the Starpack Industry Awards. Printed in the winners’ book, Hazel’s work will go on to represent UK colleges and universities in the World Star Student Awards, an International competition open to all winners.

Hazel, aged 21, is from County Wicklow, Ireland and currently lives in Luton. After graduating, she wants to work as a designer. Hazel says, "I was delighted to win such an award, it felt like all of the hard work paid off and will be great on my C.V." Hazel's winning work will be on display at the London D&AD Show in June and also at the College's End of Year Art, Design, Media and Performing Arts Show, which is open to the public June 19–24.

Student wins design competition

Dunstable College student, Peter Reck aged 20 from Luton, has won the Learning Partnership – Bedfordshire and Luton Ltd Skills Institute Logo Competition. Peter wins a prize of £150 and will now work with the competition organisers to further develop the logo and see his concept through to publication. The competition was open to graphic design and art and design students from all colleges in Bedfordshire and Luton.

The competition requirements were to design a new logo and colourway for the Skills Institute.

Carole Pullinger, Business Services Manager for The Learning Partnership - Bedfordshire and Luton Ltd explains the background to the competition, “The Learning Partnership – Bedfordshire and Luton Ltd and the Investing in Communities fund of the East of England Development Agency have launched the first of a county- wide network of Skills Institute facilities in Houghton Regis (the Kingsland campus). Our mission is to deliver learning to adults in Bedfordshire and Luton. Other facilities are planned for Leighton Buzzard, Biggleswade, Bedford and Luton.

“It was felt that a unifying logo should be commissioned to contribute towards the development of a Skills Institute brand. Given the educational nature of the partners involved in this project, it was considered that an open competition for graphic design students in Bedfordshire and Luton would provide the optimum opportunity for students to contribute to the development of a logo for the Skills Institute.”

The competition judges were Dave Wyatt, Creative Director of Roundhouse Health and Martin Gimson, Logistics Technology & Engineering Manager of 3M. They commented, “The winning logo was well received. It feels very modern and immediately suggests success. All the entries for the Skills Institute were well thought out and of a high standard. The judges would like to say well done to all the entrants and special congratulations to the winning entry.”

Peter is in his second year of the Foundation Degree in Graphic Design and Advertising and plans to progress on to the final year of his degree at Dunstable with the BA (Hons) in Graphic Design for Print and New Media, starting next September. Peter comments, “I was surprised and delighted to hear that I had won. It has given me more confidence in my abilities. I hope this will give me a boost in my career, as it will get my work noticed. Once I have completed my degree at Dunstable College, I would like to work as a graphic designer in a company and develop as a freelancer as well.”

Peter receiving his winning cheque from Carole Pullinger

Inaugural Lecturer Awards Ceremony – Thursday 19 April 2007

For the first time ever, Dunstable College has held a ceremony to publicly recognise the hard work and achievement of its lecturing staff; in particular Course Team Leaders of Highly Commended and Commended courses (that means those courses with success rates well in excess of national benchmarks). The ceremony was attended by the Mayor, Councillor Cynthia Gresham, the Governors, College Directors, lecturers and their families.

Colleges often run ceremonies for their students and Dunstable has been doing this for a number of years. However, as College Deputy-Principal, Jerry Goodwin, explained, “Dunstable College wanted an event to recognise the very positive contribution of its teaching staff towards the improving success rates within the College. The College’s overall success rate jumped a full 10% in the academic year 2005/6 and the College is on target to achieve a similar leap in its results for 2006/7.”

As well as presenting Certificates of Commendation to the appropriate lecturers for their Highly Commended and Commended courses, a number of prizes were awarded to recognise the contribution of individuals for specific achievements. Among these:

Rachel Halling was awarded the Mayor’s prize for particularly effective work with disadvantaged learners. Rachel is based at the Learning Warehouse in Leighton-Linslade where she has been in charge of the Skills to Succeed ESF (European Social Fund) project. The project is aimed at 14-16 year olds identified by their school as at risk of dropping out of education and not achieving, or at risk of entering the NEET (not in employment, education or training) group. Through her work on the project, Rachel has successfully worked with these difficult to reach learners and through her dedication and persistence she is achieving great results. There are students on the course who, at the beginning, were very resistant to walking into an educational establishment, but are now attending additional classes on a voluntary basis. Since September Rachel has been relentless in accessing courses and networking with different organisations to help produce a set of individual programmes which allow clear progression and Rachel’s personal dedication and encouragement have been identified as key success factors. This progression can be demonstrated as some of Rachel’s young people have now been accepted on to full-time vocational courses at the College beginning in September.

Sue Cox and Martin Rawles shared the Principal’s prize for particular achievement in promoting the College externally. Sue was recognised for the way in which she promotes the College so positively to local schools via the hugely successful 14-16 year olds’ Increased Flexibility Programme, for which she is the Co-ordinator, and Martin, who is the Course Team Leader for the Public Services courses, won his prize for securing excellent press coverage for his work and for helping his students win a wide range of awards.