Yang Xi receives the Teaching Excellence Award of UM
At the Congregation 2023 held today (10 June), the University of Macau (UM) presented the Teaching Excellence Award, which recognises one faculty member with outstanding performance in teaching. The recipient in the 2022/2023 academic year is Assistant Professor Yang Xi in the Department of Integrated Resort and Tourism Management of the Faculty of Business Administration (FBA).
According to UM, the recipient of the Teaching Excellence Award is selected by a selection committee from nominees, who are faculty-level teaching award recipients, through a rigorous process. Selection criteria include the following: teaching philosophy, depth of knowledge in the subject area, outstanding communication skills and teaching effectiveness, outstanding contributions to the quality of curriculum development, the ability to promote student learning by stimulating and sustaining the intellectual development of students, innovative approach to teaching and learning, and leadership in promoting teaching excellence within and outside the university.
Prof Yang is truly grateful to receive this distinguished award, which is an enormous honour to her. She also thanks the university for acknowledging her teaching efforts. Her teaching philosophy and approach boils down to experience management, a key concept originated from the service industry. Through offering six experiences, namely sensorial experience, emotional experience, symbolic experience, physical experience, relational experience and cognitive experience, this approach aims to foster a dynamic and engaging learning environment that remains with students long after they leave the campus. This award further fuels her motivation and inspiration to persist in providing top-notch education and fostering academic excellence.
Prof Yang joined UM in 2019 as an assistant professor in the Department of Integrated Resort and Tourism Management of the FBA. She earned her bachelor’s and PhD degrees from Peking University and the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, respectively. Her research interests encompass a range of topics within the tourism and hospitality industry, including personnel psychology, experience management, and destination branding. Prof Yang has published over 30 academic papers and is an excellent researcher — She is the winner of the FBA Outstanding Research Award for two consecutive academic years (2020/2021 and 2021/2022) and an award recipient of the FBA’s Incentive Scheme for Outstanding Academic Staff for 2022/2023. She currently serves in the editorial board of Journal of Travel Research and Tourism Analysis.