Leeds Beckett University - City Campus,
Woodhouse Lane,
LS1 3HE
High-achieving students receive scholarship and mentorship
The recipients of the fifth annual Professor Bligh Scholarship are Fatemeh Amirkamali, a 35-year-old BSc (Hons) Speech and Language Therapy student from Alwoodley, Leeds, and Claire Paylor, a 24-year-old BSc (Hons) Environmental Health student from Selby.
The Professor Bligh Scholarship is awarded to two second year students each year who are the first in their family to go to university. The scholarship winners are selected based on their academic merit, enthusiasm and innovation in their studies.
Fatemeh, who was born in Tehran, said: “I feel very much honoured and humbled to have received this award. I do understand that it is very competitive, so winning the award meant a lot both to me and the Speech and Language Therapy team. As I am a mature student who is working, this scholarship will provide me with financial security and enable me to focus more on my course. I am extremely pleased that I will be mentored with Professor Bligh over the coming years as well. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity for me.”
The scholarship was established in 2012 by Professor Donald Bligh, who graduated in Teacher Training from Leeds Beckett University in 1958. Professor Bligh believes that universities are integral to teaching knowledge, but also creating new knowledge and new interpretations of old knowledge by use of the imagination and then testing ideas by research and intellectual criticism.
In addition to the £1,000 prize, both Fatemeh and Claire will receive mentorship from Professor Bligh to help them to take their ideas further and develop appropriate study methods to do so.
Claire added: “I feel absolutely honoured to have been awarded the Professor Bligh Scholarship. It has given me confidence in my academic abilities and recognition of my commitment to my course and environmental health as a career. The scholarship will provide me with professional guidance from Professor Bligh throughout the year of studies ahead and help me build my confidence; and the financial prize will provide me with the ability to attend invaluable continuous professional development courses and events run by the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health, which will benefit me greatly in my career. I am eternally grateful for the opportunity to work with Professor Bligh. I am absolutely honoured to have achieved his recognition and cannot wait for the year ahead!”
Professor Bligh commented: “The scholarship was founded on my passionate belief that universities should be places where there is freedom of thought and where knowledge is discovered, developed or created. This may be achieved in many different ways such as; developing new methods of enquiry, deliberately associating new ideas that would not normally be connected, challenging assumptions, interpreting experiments or feelings in new contexts, letting one’s imagination go into fantasy, positive and negative criticism and so on.”