A commendable verdict

The department of law and centre for energy petroleum mineral law and policy (CEMPLP) have received the top grading of "commendable" from the Quality Assurance Agency.

Following a visit by the subject review team in January, the team graded teaching and learning as commendable. Commenting on the department of law's teaching, the team said that "the compulsory level four dissertation is a first-class vehicle for developing a range of benchmarking skills. Students appreciate the opportunity to demonstrate their ability to undertake independent research and show well-motivated choices of topics".

The report drew attention to CEMPLP's innovative range of teaching methods and to the practical experience of its full time and external teaching staff. Head of CEMPLP, Dr Philip Andrews-Speed said: "This rating shows that CEMPLP's international reputation for postgraduate education is based on an academically rigorous programme".

Student progression was also rated as commendable and is underpinned by the excellent graduate recruitment record of the 2001/02 diploma in legal practice students. 98% of the diploma students had secured traineeships with Scottish legal firms by the end of May 2002. The learning resources within the department and CEMPLP were also found to be commendable and the law library, CEMPLP information services and IT provision were all praised.

Adding to the quality and breadth of teaching and learning in the law department, Professor Alice Belcher is launching a new course - the first in a UK university - to give law students a taste of corporate law and finance in the wake of the Enron scandal. Designed by Professor Belcher with the help of Professor David Power and Dr Bruce Burton in accountancy and business finance, the LLM in corporate governance offers legal research training in corporate governance with focused teaching and discussion in small groups.

Students from Germany, China and Zimbabwe are starting the postgraduate course this week. Alice Belcher is speaking at the fifth international conference on corporate governance and direction at the Henley Management Centre this week delivering a paper entitled 'the role of boards in the evolution of business knowledge'.

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