On November 29, 2024, the university community gathered for “Teaching Inspires,” an event honoring outstanding achievements in higher education teaching. More than 200 participants, including students, teachers, university officials, and representatives of the Ministry of Education, attended the event to talk to the 34 winners of the faculty-wide UNIVIE Teaching Awards 2024. The highlight of the event was the presentation of the UNIVIE Teaching Star Award, a prestigious university-wide award. Through audience voting, the most outstanding teachers were selected from among all faculty-wide award winners, who ultimately received the university-wide “Teaching Star” award.
In the Inspiration Hub, the award winners discussed topics such as STEM research, social integration of students, digital skills, and successful large-scale teaching events with teachers, officials, and students. The interactive format allowed visitors to learn about all the teaching projects. Their opinion was sought in order to find the Teaching Star of the Year.
In the first round of audience voting, visitors selected five winners to advance to the final round, who then presented their projects in 3-minute pitches:
- Christoph Burger/Birgit Leidenfrost (Faculty of Psychology),
- Anja-Xiaoxing Cui (Faculty of Philology and Cultural Studies),
- Cornelia Ehmayer-Rosinak (Faculty of Psychology),
- Lisa-Maria Goros (Faculty of Philology and Cultural Studies), and
- Verena Kreppel (Center for Sports Science and University Sports)
The second round of voting brought a pleasant surprise: Christoph Burger and Birgit Leidenfrost with their practice-oriented seminar in psychology and Verena Kreppel with the course Individual Sport Swimming were named Teaching Stars 2024 thanks to a tie vote.