p.1 NTEU NATIONAL TEACHING CONFERENCE 2013 SPEAKERS Shirley Alexander is Professor of Learning Technologies at the University of Technology, Sydney where she is currently Deputy Vice-Chancellor & Vice President (Teaching, Learning & Equity). Her portfolio responsibilities include the quality of courses and teaching, equity and diversity, student services, and the student experience. The University of Technology Sydney is embarking on a major campus redevelopment project which will involve close to $1billion in expenditure and Shirley is leading the teams designing the teaching and learning, and student space projects. She is aiming to drive changes to the student experience of university through the design of spaces. She is currently chair of the “Data Intensive University” project, a university-wide initiative to ensure the university makes best use of data in the full range of its activities. Professor James Arvanitakis is a lecturer in the Humanities at the University of Western Sydney and a member of the University’s Institute for Cultural and Society. His research areas include hope, trust, political theatre, piracy and citizenship. A former banker James has worked as a human rights activist throughout the Pacific, Indonesia and Europe. James received the prestigious 2012 Prime Minister’s University Teacher of the Year Award, being recognised for his innovative teaching approaches and ability to bring together his passion for community engagement and research activities. He is the lead researcher on an Australia Research Council (ARC) Discovery Grant looking at contemporary challenges of citizenship and writing a new edition of his sociology textbook (for Oxford University Press). His work can be found at www.jamesarvanitakis.net. Professor Warren Bebbington commenced as the University of Adelaide’s 20th Vice-Chancellor in July 2012. A Fulbright Scholar, Professor Bebbington studied at the University of Melbourne and in New York at Queens College, Columbia University, and the CUNY Graduate School, completing masters degrees in Arts, Music, and Philosophy, and a PhD. Prior to his role at the University of Adelaide, he was Deputy Vice-Chancellor (University Affairs), and previously, Pro Vice- Chancellor (Global Relations) at the University of Melbourne. He also served as a Dean at the University of Melbourne and at the University of Queensland, and before that taught at the Australian National University’s School of Music. As a teacher, he won the University of Melbourne Award for Excellence in Teaching (Humanities) in 2005 and an Australian Learning and Teaching Council Citation for “30 years of outstanding teaching” in 2008. He has appeared frequently as a visiting keynote speaker at universities abroad, including in Dublin and Hong Kong. Professor Bebbington’s publications include the Oxford Companion to Australian Music, and he was, for a decade, the music member of the international Advisory Committee for Encyclopaedia Britannica. His national community roles have included seven years as Chair of Music Committees for the Australia Council, Federal Chair of AMEB, and Deputy Chair of Youth Music Australia. Andrew Bonnell is an Associate Professor of History at the University of Queensland. His publications include the books The People’s Stage in Imperial Germany (2005), Shylock in Germany (2008) and An American Witness in Nazi Frankfurt (edited 2011), as well as numerous articles, specialising in modern German history. He is a past convener of the History discipline at UQ, and is History editor of the Australian Journal of Politics and History. He has been NTEU Branch President at UQ since 2003 and is currently NTEU Queensland Division President, and a member of the NTEU National Executive. He is also a member of the University of Queensland Senate (academic staff-elected). With a background in neuroscience, Professor Stuart Bunt is at present researching the physical characteristics of brain for modelling brain movement in injury and surgery, and has grants to research new teaching methods using social media and virtual reality, and supporting research in the bioarts (Scientific Director 2000-2008 and co-founder of SymbioticA, the first art and biology lab situated in a science department). He has consulted and lectured on the nexus between Art/ Science and Technology, exhibited in Ars Electronica and collaborated or helped produce a number of biotech art pieces revolving around emergent technologies in the biosciences. Stuart is a senator at the University of Western Australia for 12 years, chief executive of the biomedical software spin-off company, Paradigm Diagnostics, and founder of the Image Acquisition and Analysis Facility, UWA. He is a former President and now Vice President of UWAASA, a former president and now Vice-President Academic of the NTEU UWA branch. He is also the WA Division President. Ted Clark is the current University of Melbourne NTEU Branch President and member of branch committee since joining the university. He lectures in the Melbourne Graduate School of Education and co ordinates the Learning Area Information Technology. Ted is researching the use of online environments for learning. His doctoral study investigates the contributions of online network social and material connections to learning. Raewyn Connell is a Professor at the University of Sydney, a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia, and one of Australia’s leading social scientists. Her most recent books are Confronting Equality (2011), about social science and politics; Gender: In World Perspective (2009); and Southern Theory (2007), about social thought beyond the global metropole. Her other books include Masculinities, Schools & Social Justice, Ruling Class Ruling Culture, Gender & Power, and Making the Difference. Her work has been translated into sixteen languages. She has taught at universities in Australia, Canada and the USA, in departments of sociology, political science, and education. A long-term participant in the labour movement and peace movement, Raewyn has tried to make social science relevant to social justice. More about her research can be found at: www.raewynconnell.net. Stephen Darwin is the Secretary of the NTEU ACT Division. Prior to being elected to this role, he worked as an education academic at the ANU and the University of Canberra, teaching in the areas of learning design, educational leadership and educational research. Stephen was also formerly the Director of Education at the Canberra Institute of Technology, where he led significant reforms of approaches to vocational teaching and learning. Stephen has also undertaken research on student evaluation and the nature of vocational and higher education teaching and learning. p.2 NTEU NATIONAL TEACHING CONFERENCE 2013 From her base at Griffith University, Lynda Davies has had the opportunity to contribute to local, divisional and national union policy directions by bringing the experiences of her colleagues to bear on current issues, and the issues that the union has foreseen as developing problems. Over sixteen years she has held both continuing and fixed term general staff positions that have informed her view of the work general staff undertake. She holds a doctorate in creative writing and children’s literature and has designed, written and taught online Masters-level courses as a sessional academic. Her current role as a Curriculum Consultant is squarely within the blurred space of academic/general staff employment. She recognises that over the last five years the context of our positions in universities has changed; we have changed, our jobs have changed. And some of those changes are blurring the boundaries between academic and general staff work requiring some staff to operate in an environment that demands the capability and capacity to successfully straddle both domains. Professor Glenn Finger is the Dean (Learning and Teaching) of the Arts, Education and Law Group at Griffith University, and provides leadership in learning and teaching. He has held the important leadership position of Deputy Dean (Learning & Teaching) of the Faculty of Education, Griffith University from 2007-2010, and was the Deputy Director of the Centre for Learning Research at Griffith University from 2005-2006. Throughout his academic career, his teaching and research interests have focused on the use of information and communication technologies (ICT) to enhance and transform learning and teaching. He has published extensively with more than 70 peer reviewed publications, and this research has informed his scholarship of teaching. He is the lead author of the book Transforming Learning with ICT: Making IT Happen, and the Co-Editor of Developing a Networked School Community: A Guide to Realising the Vision. In 2011-2012, he was the Chair, Research and Evaluation Working Group for the national Teaching Teachers for the Future Project involving 39 Higher Education Institutions in Australia. For his university teaching, Professor Finger has won various teaching awards and citations, including the Australian Learning and Teaching Council (ALTC) Award for Teaching Excellence (Social Sciences) in 2009, Australian Teacher Education Association Pearson Education Teacher Educator of the Year in 2008, and an ALTC Citation for Outstanding Contributions to Student Learning in 2008. Prior to his appointment at Griffith in 1999, Professor Finger served with Education Queensland for more than 24 years as a physical education specialist, primary school teacher, Deputy