The Community Colleges Australia (CCA) Annual Conference is the premier event for Australian adult and community education providers.
The 2017 conference theme Community Education: Investing in our Future recognised the importance that education plays in people’s lives. The community education sector, because of our strong community links and our not-for-profit status, plays an essential role in ensuring that investment in Australian skills development is both meaningful and properly targeted to Australian learners and the communities most in need.
The conference took place in Melbourne on 25-27 July 2017.
Guest speaker: Anzac Leidig, Head Tennis Coach/Program Coordinator, Evonne Goolagong Foundation. Anzac is an Aboriginal Ngarrindjeri man from the lower lakes of the Coorong in South Australia. In 2004 Anzac first began to pursue his passion in mentoring Indigenous school students in and around Adelaide. Anzac has been working for Evonne Goolagong Cawley and her husband Roger for 13 years. In 2006-2007 Anzac moved to Norwich England to coach tennis. Upon returning to Australia Anzac took up a role with the Evonne Goolagong Foundation assisting in running coaching, mentoring, Come N Try Days, State Camps and a National Camp.
Community Education Student of the Year Awards
The Hon Karen Andrews MP was first elected to Federal Parliament in 2010 to represent the electorate of McPherson on the southern Gold Coast and was appointed Assistant Minister for Vocational Education and Skills in July 2016. Mrs Andrews is focused on raising the status of VET and ensuring it provides people with the skills industry is looking for to secure the jobs of the future. Prior to entering parliament, Mrs Andrews’ background was in engineering, industrial relations and running her own business. Her qualifications include a Bachelor of Engineering, Graduate Diploma in Industrial Relations and Certificate in Mediation.
Susan Pascoe AM is the inaugural Commissioner for the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission (ACNC), Australia's first national, independent regulator of charities established in December 2012. Prior to this appointment, Ms Pascoe was Commissioner of the State Services Authority in Victoria. In this role she chaired or co-chaired reviews into the regulation of the not-for-profit sector (2007-08), the design and governance of regulatory bodies in Victoria (2008-09), and Victoria's Indigenous Employment Strategy (2008-09). Ms Pascoe was appointed in 2009 as one of three Commissioners for the Royal Commission into Victoria’s Black Saturday Bushfires.
Professor Peter Noonan has played a major role in shaping policy in Australia’s education and training system and has experience working as a policy adviser, senior executive and consultant to federal and state governments, universities, higher education providers and TAFE institutes. His current research work is focused on tertiary education funding including analysis of proposals for fee deregulation, the opening up of higher education funding to private higher education institutions, options for reform of Australia’s income contingent loans system and the development of a more coherent tertiary education system in Australia across the higher education and VET sectors. Peter has extensive international experience having undertaken major in country projects in Singapore, Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi, China, Namibia and Papua New Guinea and as an invited speaker and delegation member in India, Hong Kong, Japan, Brazil, Korea, the USA and England. Peter is also an Honorary Senior Fellow in the Graduate School of Education at The University of Melbourne in the LH Martin Institute for Tertiary Education Leadership.
The Hon Michael Lavarch AO has extensive experience in higher education and the public policy process. He is a former Dean of the Faculty of Law of the Queensland University of Technology and Secretary-General of the Law Council of Australia. From 1987 to 1996, Mr Lavarch was a Member of the Australian Parliament, and he served as Attorney-General from 1993 to 1996. He was made an Officer of the Order of Australia in 2012 for his contribution to the law, education and human rights.
Lynn Glover has been CEO (Director) of the Victorian Registration and Qualification Authority since June 2007. She is responsible for the establishment, development and implementation of regulation for the registration and ongoing quality assurance of education and training providers in Victoria. This role oversees home schooling, school education (both public and private), vocational education and training, overseas student exchange programs, apprenticeships and traineeships. Ms Glover represents the VRQA a number of Commonwealth and State advisory committees and works closely with a broad range of education stakeholders.
Dr Rodney Maddock is Professor, Monash Business School, Monash University; Vice Chancellor's Fellow, Victoria University; and President, Economic Society of Australia (Victorian Branch). Dr Maddock was previously a senior executive at the Commonwealth Bank after earlier stints as Chief Economist for the Business Council of Australia, Head of Economic Policy in the Victorian Cabinet Office, and a Professor of Economics at La Trobe University. Rod is a frequent conference speaker. He has also written extensively on different aspects of the Australian economy, and comments regularly of the Australian Financial Review and The Conversation. His books include The Australian economy in the long run and Unlocking the infrastructure.
Terry Rawnsley helps businesses and governments make informed decisions by taking complex data and distilling them into simple to understand options. He is Australia’s leading thinker on the link between the urban productivity and the macroeconomy. Terry has prepared the Australian Cities Accounts which has filled a key void in economic policy evidence base by measuring urban and regional economic growth. Terry was co-author to a chapter in the book ‘Australia’s Unintended Cities’ looking at the link between urban structure and productivity. In 2017, Terry was selected as the Planning Champion by the Planning Institute of Australia. He will talk about “Is Uneven Economic Growth Dividing Australian Society?”
Professor Erica Smith joined Federation University in March 2008 and is the convenor of the university’s research group Research in Adult and Vocational Education (RAVE). Prior to this she was Professor of Vocational Education and Training (VET) at Charles Sturt University, where she was discipline leader in VET and convenor of Charles Sturt University's research grouping RIVET (Research in Vocational Education and Training). She is Associate Editor of the international journal Education + Training, and on the editorial board of four others, two of which are international. Professor Smith has managed more than 20 national research projects, including four Australian Research Council-funded grants. Her work has been cited in government inquiries many times, she has frequently advised governments, both in Australia and overseas. Professor Smith has also worked as a personnel manager in industry, TAFE teacher, community worker, manager of a Registered Training Organisation and Executive Director of a State Industry Training Advisory Board.
Emma Dawson is the Executive Director of Per Capita. Formerly, she was a senior advisor on Digital Inclusion at Telstra, Executive Director of the Institute for a Broadband Enabled Society at the University of Melbourne, and a senior policy advisor in the Rudd and Gillard governments. Emma has published more than 50 articles and opinion pieces on a wide range of public policy issues, which have appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, The Guardian, The Australian, The Monthly and online publications. Emma holds a BA (First Class Hons) from LaTrobe University and an MA (Distinction) from Monash. She sits on the boards of the Prader-Willi Research Foundation Australia and Arts Access Victoria.
Dr Laurie Chesley has many years of experience as a senior academic leader and faculty member in various higher education institutions, including four-year public and private schools, as well as community colleges. Dr Chesley earned her doctorate in English from the University of Notre Dame. In 2013, she received a Distinguished Woman in Higher Education Leadership Award from the Michigan Chapter of the American Council on Education. She is an accreditation peer reviewer for the United States Higher Learning Commission, and she teaches in the Doctorate in Community College Leadership Program at Ferris State University.
Dr Roberta Teahen has worked for Ferris for 15 years, where her responsibilities include oversight of accreditation, evaluation, and assessment. Since 2010, she has also led a doctoral program that will have graduated close to 100 individuals with more than 95 currently enrolled. She has also spent much of her career at Northwestern Michigan Community College in leadership roles including Director of the Business Division and Dean of Workforce Development. Professionally she is active with the regional accreditor, the Higher Learning Commission, as a team chair, member of the Institutional Actions Council, and Assessment and Completion Academies’ mentor. Dr Teahen earned her doctorate in Higher, Adult, and Lifelong Learning from Michigan State University. In 2014, Dr Teahen was awarded the Athena Grand Traverse Award, in recognition of excellence, creativity and initiative and in assisting women in reaching their leadership potential and as the Distinguished Woman in Higher Education award by the Michigan chapter of the American Council on Education in 2015.
Prior to joining Philanthropy Australia in October 2015, Sarah was CEO of The Reach Foundation, a for-purpose organisation working to improve the wellbeing of young people so they can get the most out of life. Sarah has also been CEO of the Australian Communities Foundation, a non-profit charitable foundation which enables accessible philanthropy and matches its donors’ interests to emerging social issues and needs of communities. Before moving into the non-profit sector, her professional life included senior executive roles in tertiary education in Australia and private sector consulting in HR, marketing and strategy in Australia, Europe and the Middle East. Sarah’s current community roles include Director of Kids Under Cover and board member of the Centre for Social Impact. Sarah is a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Management, a Member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors, a Fellow of the Williamson Community Leadership Program and a Victorian JP.
David Pearson is the Executive Director of the Don Dunstan Foundation, a leading think tank in South Australia established to promote the values and vision of its founder, the late Premier Don Dunstan. The Foundation focusses on social justice and human rights issues through research, public events, collaborative projects and creating new ventures, including how to establish new business models to make the delivery of community services like education more financially sustainable. Prior to his current role, David was a Senior Adviser to South Australian Premier Jay Weatherill.
