Vice-Chancellor's Awards
2008 Winners
Vice-Chancellor's
Teaching Award (TAFE)
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Mr Clive Linley,
Teacher, Department of Building and Transport, School of Engineering |
For his dedication and commitment to teaching, combining his extensive
experience in the building trade and specialist skills in cabinet
making to become a constantly dedicated, and thoroughly committed
teacher in a challenging area, while undertaking other responsibilities
above his teaching roles:
- advance the VCAL carpentry program - he became the Co-ordinator
of VCAL and VIP and is the course mentor for the VET in schools
carpentry course
- further to his contribution in developing youth teams, he
is also engaged in professional development and state-wide staff
training, and a mentor for all sessional staff in the Department
- a role he embraces and delivers with great warmth and skill
- for his role in the VET program he has to work diligently
with secondary schools to meet AQFT requirements, VET moderation
best practice, and assistance with implementation of methodology,
assignments, assessments and course development
leader of a joint ‘Reframing the Future’ project’
between Swinburne and Chisholm TAFEs to deliver cross department
training for teachers
- in order to remain at the cutting edge of VET teaching, learning
and delivery, he has commenced study at Swinburne TAFE in the
Diploma of VET Practice
- his commitment to the VIP program has allowed an excellent
opportunity for students to experience a trade while still engaged
in learning at school and, at the same time, taking them out
of the regimented classroom into real life learning environment
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Ms Melinda Eason,
Teacher, Centre for Engagement in Vocational Learning - Indigenous
Programs |
For her outstanding achievements and positive outcomes in the delivery
of Certificate IV and Diploma of Youth Work for Indigenous students
to a wide range of students in the inner Melbourne area and Shepparton:
- the rapid growth and development of the program has resulted
in an outstanding achievement and positive outcome for the indigenous
community: starting with 10 students enrolled, with now 35 students
enrolled in both programs
- her commitment to her work and students, through nurturing
their achievements, is exemplary
- engendering enthusiasm and motivation in her students has
made their experience at Swinburne a memorable milestone
- whilst engaging with industry and the community in an entrepreneurial
manner, she has also been successful in attracting funding for
two projects: to introduce employability skills into the program,
and incorporating real practical information and activities
in relation to applying and interviewing well for jobs; the
second project is to review and evaluate the resources to ensure
best possible teaching methods and culturally appropriate materials
and practices are implemented while still meeting AQTF standards
- her networking with the youth sector – CASA and Youthlaw,
Chair of Iramoo Youth Refugee and on the Board of Directors
for Latitude- has enabled students to benefit of up to date
information
- among the multiple challenges that come with teaching indigenous
students, she provides a safe learning environment and after
class support for her students
- despite the negative educational experiences in some cases,
Melinda has provided an education in her area of expertise that
is interesting and engaging for indigenous students
Vice-Chancellor's Teaching
Award (TAFE Training Initiative)
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Young Mums/Childcare
VCAL Program Team (Ms Louise Schilling, Ms Katherine
Carragher, Ms Julie Hanman, Ms Lisa Devlin-Neale, Mr Craig Jennings
and Mr John Middleton) – Centre for Engagement in Vocational
Learning |
For the successful development and piloting of an innovative and
supportive training delivery model for young mothers:
- has enabled young mothers, aged 15 to 18, disengaged from
schooling after becoming pregnant, to continue with their education
while also learning skills that assist them with caring for
their children
- providing a safe place for the students to continue with their
education, and also putting them in the pathway into further
vocational education – to achieve modules from ‘Certificate
II in Child Care’, assisting their transition into further
child care studies, and to provide them with modules from the
VCAL
- enabling and encouraging the students to bring their babies
to class with them to attend the ‘Childcare and Personal
Development’ modules
encouraging students to attend TAFE in spite of the struggles
they face as young mothers, and encouraging the applied learning
inherent in VCAL where all students can participate in the observation
and care for babies in a real situation
- the impact, resultant media coverage and continuous enquiries
from the public have demonstrated the program’s success
and sustainability
- future plans are already in the pipeline to expand and enhance
the program to meet the needs of the client group, and also
to improve process and procedure around the program
Vice-Chancellor's Teaching
Award (Higher Education)
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Dr Ben Williams,
Lecturer, Psychological Sciences, Faculty of Life and Social
Sciences |
- for his outstanding innovations to teaching and learning
activities, particularly using a new cutting edge technololgy
called the “Clickers” - small, hand-held remotes
reminiscent of the technology behind TV shows – and successfully
incorporated them in a range of teaching activities
- for developing new units of study and contributing to the
development of degree programs to reach a new range of student
stakeholders – distance education programs through OUA
and psychology programs to be delivered at Parkway Academy in
Singapore
- for developing the Faculty’s human infrastructure in
spending significant amount of time counselling new sessional
teaching staff
- for a systematic and progressive approach to teaching, showing
a command of his topic areas, and a profound commitment to enhancing
student learning - this approach is backed by a strong evidence
in the SFT and SFU survey data, comments from the Consultative
Teaching approach and “Clicker” survey results and
student commendations and verbal reports
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Ms Catherine Farrell,
Acting Discipline Leader, Media Studies, Faculty of Higher Education,
Lilydale |
- for her much valued contribution to educational programs at
Swinburne – engaging students in a positive and productive
learning experience using weblogs, computer and video games,
mobile phones as cultural artefacts under academic investigation;
providing diverse selection of assessment tasks to accommodate
wide ranges of experience, through completing a number of projects
within the Media Studies
- making it possible for students to apply the knowledge which
they are meeting in the classroom to a variety of real world
projects, many embedded in the community and industry –
2006 pilot program at Telstra’s Internal Communications
Department; blogs development for Southern Women’s Action
Network and a local politician; developed and convened one of
the first project units to be delivered at FHEL in film making
process, providing students with a better understanding of project
management and a basic understanding of software like ‘YouTube,
Micromovies and Blogs’
- the success in meeting her educational objectives is strongly
evidenced in the SFT and SFU data reports
- Mr Andrew Cain, Lecturer in Computer Science
and Software Engineering, Faculty of Information and Communication
Technologies:
- for his pioneering approaches to assessment and the provision
of learning support; feedback and learning support that fosters
independent learning - through the use of podcasts and iTunes
U for delivery of topic areas, allowing more interactive teaching
and learning methods to be employed in face-to-face sessions.
The number of podcasts developed and their production quality
demonstrate a significant contribution to the University’s
strategy in this area
- for the introduction of a portfolio approach to assessment
that highlights the mapping between assessment tasks and the
units’ learning objectives – encouraging students
to take a more holistic view of assessment by providing an
opportunity for personalisation and creativity in the manner
in which they can demonstrate mastery of the learning objectives.
This approach is linked with other significant innovations
including the manner in which meaningful feedback is provided
and carefully designed criterion-based rubics for assessing
outcomes. Together, these initiatives provide students with
a high quality learning experience that challenges them to
achieve deep learning and supports their individual styles
- for sharing his ideas and experiences with the Faculty staff
through presentations at professional development sessions
– through his collegial approach and personal enthusiasm,
he has inspired many other staff to adopt similar innovative
and reflective approaches to assessment and feedback
- student feedback has remained consistently very high over
a sustained period - this is an outstanding achievement given
the high level of technical difficulty in these units and
the diversity of the student cohort
Vice-Chancellor's
Research Award
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Dr Michael Murphy,
QEII Research Fellow, Centre for Astrophysics and Supercomputing,
Faculty of Information and Communication Technologies |
- for commencing the first ARC Queen Elizabeth II Research
Fellowship at Swinburne - a research-focussed position, with
a tenure of 5 years, and a substantive grant to 2008 Swinburne’s
ARC Discovery Project
- for his collaborative research with Taiwan and Germany using
radio telescope observations of cosmologically distant gas clouds
to test the constancy of the laws of Nature across the Universe.
– leveraging significant awards of new observations on
the world’s largest telescopes, and leading to significant
new research articles in high impact journals
- for his research papers published and accepted in high-impact
refereed journals – stemming from separate international
collaborations which will produce future publications, and,
having accrued more citations, is now in the 20 top-cited astronomy
related papers published
- his success in winning competitive observing time on the world’s
best optical and radio telescopes and successful research collaborations,
will strengthen Swinburne research outcomes
Vice-Chancellor's Research Award
(Early Career)
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Dr Fei-Ching Kuo,
Lecturer, Faculty of Information and Communication Technologies |
For attaining several significant research outcomes:
- a chief investigator of the ARC Discovery Project “Failure-Based
Testing: An In-Depth Theoretical and Experimental Study”
– an in-depth study of failure-based testing by investigating
the impact of every feature of failure patterns, the project
will contribute to the theory of software testing and deliver
new effective testing methods
- first chief investigator of ARC Discovery Project “A
Comprehensive Testing Methodology for Embedded Software”
– to develop a comprehensive method for testing embedded
systems, integrating and extending several different software
testing techniques, to build prototype testing tools implementing
the method, and conduct case studies to examine its effectiveness
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Dr Jinjun Chen,
Lecturer, Faculty of Information and Communication Technologies |
For his significant contributions to research, and research collaboration
and services:
- high level achievements in his high quality publications,
contributing to Swinburne’s national and international
reputation in research excellence
- established a strategic collaboration with the University
of Melbourne for joint PhD student supervision, and an ARC LP
project with Shandong Dareway Software Corporate, one of the
top 100 software companies in China
- established long-term research collaboration with several
top 10 universities in China, evidenced by continuing joint
publication, joint PhD student supervision, and through multiple
visits and seminars
- established solid research collaboration with world-class
leading domain scholars from China, USA and Netherlands
- for his research leadership, services and honours.
Vice-Chancellor's
Industry Engagement Award
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The Centre for Engagement
in Vocational Learning Team (Mr Trevor Bayley, Ms Fiona
Tunchon and Mr Damien Kearney) |
:For their Community Enterprise Project to improve
learning and employment outcomes for young indigenous people:
- using a partnership approach to work with Indigenous young
people aged 15+ who are at risk of leaving school before completion
of Year 12 – young people are enrolled in Australian School
Based Apprenticeships in Sport and Recreation as part of their
schooling. They are employed part-time to work on a number of
sporting and recreation projects, and the resulting training
and assessment provide them with credit towards their Senior
Secondary Certificates and a Certificate II or III in Sport
and Recreation. All trainees involved in the project act as
role models for other Indigenous students, and also act as mentors
to new participants
- industry engagement with the Sport and Recreation Industry,
to develop a framework that would deliver an Indigenous workforce
through a School-Based Apprenticeship model that assists in
the development of employability and workforce skills –
the skill development takes place in structured workplace learning
opportunities
- continuous review with industry partners resulted in a constant
improvement of the course delivery and design, as well as expanding
the commercial options – the success of the program led
to other industries engagement in both pre-employment training
for Indigenous trainees as well as the broader learning community
model for delivering outcomes.
Vice-Chancellor's
Community Engagement Award
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The Faculty of Design
Product Design Engineering Team (Ms Katherine Bissett-Johnson,
Mr Ian de Vere, Mr Peter Mulqueen and Mr Blair Kuys) |
For their initiatives in the area of community engagement in Product
Design Engineering, specifically through the unit “Social
Responsibility”:
- in developing an innovative teaching initiative which engaged
the third year Product Design Engineering students in real world
humanitarian aid projects, through collaboration with World
Vision Australia
- the program is dedicated to a teaching and learning model
that imbues students with an understanding of their societal
role as engineers and designers
- in engaging in community aid projects to generate design
solutions to help the socially and economically disadvantaged
– the project objective was to use a user-centred design
approach that takes into account the needs of the user and also
showing ways to utilise local materials, technologies and expertise
in the production of socially responsible problem solving products
- the involvement of World Vision in this subject has lead
to significant broadening of student understanding, helped develop
a culture of social responsibility, sensitivity to cultural
values and an ethical approach to design
- from the four scenarios provided by World Vision Australia
– low birth outcomes in Nepal, Kala Axar disease prevention
in Somalia, healthcare services reconstruction in Banda Arche
and child survival in India – the students developed thirteen
innovative project solutions – bicycle or yak powered
ambulance, portable minimal, low cost solar powered baby issolette,
ceramic sterilization unit, portable greenhouse that uses transpiration
to generate clean water, system for transporting vaccinations
and syringes, hand powered electronic audio device that plays
educational audio files re nutrition, healthcare, birthing,
portable aerobic toilet, solar powered portable insect zapper
- students enthusiastically embraced the project with the knowledge
that their designs may have real benefits for those in need,
and may even save lives. This ongoing community engagement with
World Vision will contribute to humanitarian projects in the
immediate region
Vice-Chancellor's
Entrepreneurship Award
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Mr
Stephen Spring, Senior Teaching Fellow, Australian
Graduate School of Entrepreneurship (AGSE), Faculty of Business
and Enterprise
Mr Shane Morris, Group Manager, Corporate
Strategy, Australia Post
Mr Chris Grosser, Group Manager, International
Treaty & Policy Group, Australia Post
|
For the development of the Australian global program on “Executive
Master in Postal Leadership”, which was successfully delivered
to Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland:
- with the support of Australia Post, and approvals from Faculty
of Business and Enterprise and Swinburne International, a detailed
program was organised, including sessions on Corporate Entrepreneurship,
Culture Innovation and Foresight, Postal Strategy, International
Postal Innovation, Hybrid Mail and Strategic Acquisitions; visits
to three world-class Australia Post facilities; and a KPMG’s
session
- the first cohort of students in September 2008 comprised
participants from seven countries, postal executives, national
regulators and the Universal Postal Union staff
- feedback on the program being very positive, an opportunity
has emerged to grow AGSE’s executive education business
by expanding its product range and entering a new market –
EPFL would like to involve AGSE/SUT in 2009 program, and are
also discussing the possibility of establishing similar programs
in other areas, and of doing joint industry funded research
Vice-Chancellor's
Internationalisation Award
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Ms Fiona O'Donnell and
the Swinburne Library |
For the Library and International Project:
- an improved understanding of the needs and demands of international
students by library staff
- an international dimension to library planning and outputs
at all levels
- improved library services to international students both
within Australia and overseas
- for a positive response by international students to Swinburne's
library services
- the development of effective working relationships between
the library and other relevant staff
Vice-Chancellor's
Sustainability Award
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The Centre for Sustainable
Infrastructure Team (Dr Arul Arulrajah, Dr Monzur Imteaz,
Professor John Wilson and Ms Julia Lamborn), Faculty of Engineering
and Industrial Sciences |
For their success in attracting substantial industry research income:
- focussing research on the sustainable usage of reclaimed
demolition materials, biosolids, dredged clay spoils and other
waste materials in Geotechnical, Pavement and Structural Engineering
applications
- encouraging the embedment of sustainability principles in
the Civil Engineering program at undergraduate and postgraduate
levels, including ‘Sustainable Design’ and ‘Sustainable
Buildings’ subjects, resulting in significant interest
in how to apply sustainable design in civil engineering applications,
particularly in the field of Green Buildings
- offering a multi-faculty Electives Plus sequence in “Sustainability”
to all Swinburne undergraduates
- development of the undergraduate curriculum for ‘Water
and Environmental Engineering’ – a sustainable urban
water management with industry – exposing students to
real world design strategies within a supportive collegial environment,
and aiming at improving students’ skills and knowledge
base in sustainable water management practice
- development of the undergraduate curriculum for ‘Sustainable
Design Project’ - the capstone project for civil engineering
- incorporating environmental engineering, water sensitive urban
design and structural design in an open-ended multidisciplinary
project
- development of the undergraduate curriculum for ‘Sustainable
Design’ - in the teaching of a broad range of sustainability
topics – involved in introducing and disseminating sustainability
features among disadvantaged communities worldwide; through
participations in projects proposed by “Engineers without
Borders Australia”
- motivating and guiding students to participate in national
design competitions organised by “Engineers without Borders
Australia”, to contribute towards achieving the Millennium
Development Goals set by United Nation
- mentoring and advocating the establishment of a “Swinburne
Chapter of Engineers without Borders”
- collaborating in research with Greater Geelong Council on
sustainable water use
Vice-Chancellor's
Leadership and Service Excellence Award
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Ms Grace Sanna,
Manager, Faculty of Life and Social Sciences |
For her strong, particularly her commitment to staff and students:
- in setting up and developing the administration and technical
staff structure following the Higher Education restructure –
an important challenge for LSS was that staff from many different
areas of the University came together for the first time for
form a new team and build a new, unified Faculty
- for her leadership, guidance and mentoring through a period
of substantial restructure and change, which has led to where
the Faculty of LSS is today
- her secondment to Swinburne International and Development,
to assist with the development of the Online Admissions System
for Australian students (OASAS) project, is a testament to the
her valuable skills and knowledge, highly regarded and sought
after by the all within the University
- her career experience and practical approach to problem solving
make her a valuable member of staff, that can contribute to
the development and implementation of new systems and processes
that improve efficiency with the Faculty and the University
- actively involves herself in the future development of the
University to instill this passion, drive and belief in her
staff, and those who engage with her on a professional basis
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The Service
Standards and Principles Project Team (Ms Chris Peterson,
Mrs Michelle Germaine, Ms Theresa Hanley, Ms Karen Pomeranz,
Ms Joanne Austin and Mr Darren Cunningham), Faculty of Higher
Education, Lilydale and Faculty of Business and Enterprise |
For the development of principles and strategies to provide reliable,
accurate and timely service to customers:
- contributing substantially to the development of a Charter
of Service Standards and Principles for General Staff –
rolled out to all faculties of the University
- forming the groundwork for further work in ensuring a common
set of values and expected behaviours, it also underpins the
forthcoming Performance Development and Rewards system
- following further research with other organisations to ensure
its applicability and the Project Team’s vision and hard
work, the new ‘Service Standards and Principles for General
Staff’ Booklet has been rolled out across Swinburne University
Vice-Chancellor's
Intersectoral Collaboration Award
There was no application in this category.
Vice-Chancellor's
Career Achievement Award
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Associate Professor
John Pidgeon, Faculty of Business and Enterprise |
This special Award was presented to John Pidgeon in recognition
of his outstanding contribution to Swinburne University of Technology
over a period of more than thirty years. In particular, the Award
acknowledges ongoing achievement in curriculum development; the
delivery of undergraduate and postgraduate degree programs; urban
and social research; and international education.
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