Moray House Teaching Fellow and the Comparative Education and International Development program’s very own Dr. Aliandra Barlete recently received the award for 2024 Supervisor of the Year at the Edinburgh University Students Association’s annual teaching awards. Dr. Barlete was also shortlisted for the award in 2023.
For Barlete, dissertation season is a highlight of her work at Moray House. “This is the best time of my year. It’s very rewarding.”
Dr. Barlete joined the faculty at Moray House as a teaching fellow in education 2020 with the central purpose of supervising dissertations in the field of education. Since beginning in her role at Moray House, Barlete’s ideas of what makes a good supervisor have evolved. “My approach to supervision changed in the last five years in that I have been a little bit more hands-off, which means giving students more autonomy to do whatever they want. My approach to supervision is a group approach. I cannot see it as an isolated project. I see that, by working together, students gain much, much more.”
Candidates for the award are nominated and evaluated based on student testimonials, which are gathered anonymously. These testimonials outline the ways in which supervisors support, encourage, and provide opportunities for their advisees. There were around 300 nominations for the award across the University of Edinburgh for the 2024 supervisor award.
According to Barlete, receiving the award “was such a surprise. You hear what students have said about other colleagues. You listen to their nomination like, woah, so amazing! So being the one [to receive the award] is very special, and gives me so much confidence to continue what I’m doing. I keep getting reassured that [dissertation supervision] is my favorite part of the year.”
Barlete’s cat, Guri, also plays a vital role in her methodology for supervision. “The cat is, of course, my teaching assistant. Because he is a teaching assistant, he either comes to the supervision group meetings, or if I host the meetings at my house, he is at the center.” While Guri is happy to provide moral support to students in the thick of dissertation season, he also doesn’t shy away from a little tough love when students need it, as Barlete notes, “he knows that everybody has to hand in things by the deadline.”
Heartfelt congratulations to Dr. Barlete on this accomplishment!
Find out more about the Edinburgh University Students Assocation Teaching Awards and how to nominate instructors for the 2025 awards at https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/teaching-matters/teaching-awards-2024-see-the-winners/.
Below: teaching assistant Guri supervising a dissertation group meeting.
