Melbourne Graduate School of Education Centre for the Study of Higher Education

Barbara Falk Award

Associate Professor Alison Duxbury
Melbourne Law School

Alison’s 16 year teaching career has been characterised by a profound commitment to enhancing student engagement with the rule of law in the international community. It has also been distinguished by its remarkable versatility, in the array of subjects taught (15 in total), the range of class sizes (from small teams of five students to large lectures of 400+), and the variety of students within those courses (including undergraduate and postgraduate students in law and other disciplines, both in Australia and overseas). Across these diverse teaching endeavours Alison is committed to providing students with an interactive educational experience, concentrating on in-depth exposure to real-world issues, events and practitioners, while at the same time facilitating the formation of links across disciplines.

Professor Geoff Shaw
Department of Zoology
Faculty of Science

Geoff Shaw is an inspirational teacher whose enthusiasm grabs the attention of students. Among his achievements is the development of a New Generation breadth subject Sex: Science and the Community which enrolled 360 students in its first year. He overcame the logistical and pedagogical challenges that this unexpectedly large enrolment generated and made a wide range of perspectives – scientific and humanities, international and cross-cultural – accessible to the diverse student body. In all his teaching he endeavours to integrate his research interests in marsupial reproduction and development, which helps to engage the students with the excitement of ongoing research. His teaching style values the individual and encourages active, independent and lifelong learning. 

Dr Brian Krongold
Electrical and Electronic Engineering
Melbourne School of Engineering 

Brian’s core teaching philosophy focuses on motivating engineering students to become more analytical thinkers. He accomplishes this with an infectious passion for the subject material and through an engaging and structured teaching approach that emphasises reasoning and intutition over memorisation. The end result is that students learn both how and why to apply engineering concepts. Brian has received a 2006 Faculty of Engineering Teaching Excellence Award, a 2008 national ALTC Citation for Outstanding Contributions to Student Learning, a 2010 Universitas 21 Fellowship, a GEM Scott Trust Grant Award and in 2008 was awarded a Victorian Young Tall Poppy Science Award. He is involved in service and outreach activities as his Department’s Outreach Coordinator and as an Engineering Ambassador in the School of Engineering.  

Not awarded this year

The Awards Selection Committee has opted to make two awards this year:

The Lyn Yates Award
Associate Professor David Beckett
Melbourne Graduate School of Education 

David has supervised 51 thesis completions since the early 1990s. A feature of David’s supervision is the remarkably broad range of topics covered by his RHD students. His approach is based on adult learning principles which include: learning through ‘whole person’ sociality on campus; engaging a candidate’s immediate need to know how to proceed, and early and persistent sense of self-direction. He has applied these principles to his research higher degree supervision but they have also rippled outward into more generic activities for the University, particularly through his work – sustained over many years - with groups of higher degree students at the Melbourne Graduate School of Education and the Melbourne School of Graduate Research.

The Peter Doherty Award
Professor Stephen Kent
Department of Microbiology and Immunology
Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences

Stephen heads a research laboratory that studies HIV vaccines in which PhD students drive innovation and form the next generation of scientists. He has had outstanding success in mentoring PhD students into prestigious postdoctoral positions in recent years which have included: all his Australian PhD students graduating in the last 5 years being awarded highly competitive CJ Martin NHMRC fellowships to work at either Harvard, ETH in Zurich, UCSF, and the University of Washington; a Canadian PhD graduate being awarded Marie Curie and Canadian Heart Foundation fellowships and one PhD student winning a Victorian Premier’s Prize Commendation. Stephen’s completed students published a mean of over 4 first-authored manuscripts from their PhDs and all finished within 3.5 years, a dedicated goal, so that they can progress smoothly to the next exciting phase of their career.

Mr Tim Brabazon
Melbourne Graduate School of Education

In his role as Manager, Strategy and Planning at the Melbourne Graduate School of Education Tim has developed a culture of sharing and collaboration, and strives to ensure that information and knowledge is flowing not only from him, as manager, to the team, but also between team members and the wider Graduate School. He views the development of others as a high priority, and the mentoring relationships he has developed are not just about sharing the highs and lows of the day-to-day, but also focus on the development of effective leadership skills and technical knowledge in others so that they can achieve high quality outcomes.

Rio Tinto Award for Excellence and Innovation in Indigenous Higher Education

The Bower Studio
Dr David O’Brien
Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning

Dr David O'Brien has twenty years experience teaching and working in community development projects in remote Australia and Southeast Asia. He forms teams of postgraduate students to develop community infrastructure projects alongside community groups, government agencies, aid workers, builders, engineers and sociologists. As David’s projects have grown his team has grown and a team of architects and past students now assist him. The team calls itself the Bower Studio after the common Indigenous shelter typology. From 2008 to 2012 the Bower Studio has worked with Australian Indigenous communities in an ongoing series of projects to improve housing and build infrastructure in communities in Darwin, the Pilbara and Cape York. The teams have designed and renovated housing, constructed two computer centers and constructed an early childhood learning center. The Bower Studio group is regularly invited to return to work with its Indigenous partners, demonstrating the strength of the Studio’s long-term relationships.

Finding Common Ground: Enhancing interaction between domestic and international students
University of Melbourne
A/Prof Sophie Arkoudis & Dr Chi Baik (Centre for the Study of Higher Education, lead agency)
Dr Shanton Chang (Computing and Information Systems)
Professor Ian Lang (Victorian College of the Arts)

Deakin University
Professor Kim Watty

Victoria University 
Professor Helen Borland & Dr Amanda Pearce

RMIT
Dr Josephine Lang

Finding Common Ground is a one-of-a-kind resource having a significant impact on the
way academics incorporate cultural diversity in their teaching and, thus, the way students engage in learning both nationally and even internationally. Based on extensive research, its conceptual framework underpins each of the accompanying cross-disciplinary resources. Initiated and led by staff from the Centre for the Study of Higher Education and produced through a multi-faculty and multi-institutional collaboration of leaders in cross-cultural education, Finding Common Ground’s materials address one of the major challenges in teaching in Australian higher education today: internationalisation of the curriculum and effective interaction between international and domestic students.

Gerry Baretto Awards for Outstanding Student Services