More award recognition for Ayrshire College lecturer
John McBlain, Music, Performance and Media lecturer at Ayrshire College, has been named College Enterprise Champion at the Bridge 2 Business Enterprise Awards.
The 2022 Bridge 2 Business Enterprise Awards recognise students, educators and individuals who are leading the way in enterprise within Scotland’s colleges.
John has been instrumental in helping his students explore their creativity through Rockpool Podcasts, a podcasting platform that allows his students to edit, record, and publish episodes to Spotify. The award-winning podcast has published over 150 episodes so far, with students from every SCQF level – from school-college courses to HND – getting involved.
The popular lecturer has also been heavily involved in a one-of-a-kind partnership established with BBC Radio Scotland’s BBC Introducing in Scotland programme. This project gives Ayrshire College students the experience of recording live performances to broadcast quality and has been a fantastic networking opportunity for the college students.
This is the second consecutive year John’s hard work has been recognised by Bridge 2 Business, winning last year’s Further Education College Enterprise Educator award.
John McBlain, from Cumnock, said: “I want to say a huge thank you to the people who nominated me, my colleagues, my friends across further education. I’m just a musician coming in and sharing practice with my students and doing what I do, and if that’s inspiring other people to do great things then fantastic. Thank you to Bridge 2 Business for this recognition, and the College Development Network for sponsoring this award.”
John was nominated for three awards this year – College Enterprise Champion as well as Innovation and Special Recognition. A student at Ayrshire College, Access to HNC Music’s Evan Keen, was also nominated, in the Enterprising Student of the Year category.
Evan was shortlisted for his fantastic creative project that he worked on in association with Kilmarnock Football Club. Evan recorded, released and promoted a cover version of ‘We Found Love’ by Calvin Harris and Rihanna, to commemorate and celebrate the 10th anniversary of Kilmarnock FC winning the Scottish League Cup.
12 May 2022
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