Speakers
Speakers
Conference Theme
The concept of Creating Space has been referred to by Professor Trevor Gale, Director of the National Centre for Student Equity in Higher Education. While Professor Gale has provided commentary on and insight into the emerging widening participation agenda in higher education his influence is not limited to the higher education sector.
The Pathways 10 Organising Committee would like to encourage all stakeholders to contribute to the discussion about how space might be created for people with disabilities
- on the widening participation agenda,
- in their institutions,
- in policy, curriculum development, pedagogy, practice and
- in professions and employment.
There is a need to refresh and reframe current thinking and practices in the context of this challenging agenda. We want to ensure that people with disabilities are included as partnerships and pathways are created to develop aspirations and increase participation in senior schooling, vocational education and training, higher education and employment.
Topics to be explored at the conference include:
- The Big Picture - including the proposed review of the Disability Standards for Education
- The Widening Participation Agenda - ensuring that students with disabilities are included as a priority group
- Creating inclusive learning environments in tertiary education
o Curriculum development
o Pedagogy
o Assessment
- Creating space in workplaces including high stakes professions
- Reframing the role of the Disabilities Service Practitioner
About Pathways Conferences
Pathways conferences are among the most important and influential international and national fora for key stakeholders involved in shaping policy and implementing innovative programs in tertiary education for people with disabilities.
The first conference was held at Deakin University's Geelong campus in December 1991 and all states and territories have now hosted the conference at least once. The Pathways 2 Conference was previously hosted by tertiary education providers in Brisbane in 1993.
Pathways conferences attract participants from around the world as well as from various sectors including:
- Education: equity and disability service providers, academics and researchers from higher education, vocational education and training and secondary schooling sectors;
- Community: people with disabilities, their parents, carers and supporters including peak organisations;
- Government: staff from government departments and agencies - state and federal; and
- Business: such as those providing specialised equipment and technologies that are used to enable access to the learning environment by students with disabilities.
Conference Proceedings
Pathways10 is moving to a paperless orientation. All posters, abstracts, papers and presentations will now be offered digitally with final programs and proceedings accessed from electronic points around the exhibition. As the future of Pathways moves towards a paperless experience, the Committee feels that these electronic opportunities will provide participants with maximum engagement and most importantly access to all facets of the program to such a level not seen before.
What does this means to you as a delegate...
The Conference will utilise products called Digital Posters, Speakersprep and Eventranet. The Committee understands this is a very new concept in event delivery and you may need to understand it all further, so if you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact the Congress office.
The system that is being used for Pathways 10 has been designed by Lucien Mark and is called an Eventranet. It has been developed as a hub to bring together all forms of Conference communications and to allow greater access to speakers and the information disseminated at an event. The system has been further enhanced by involvement from the committee and end users from the Disability Services field to ensure that all kinds of users are catered for and considered when accessing conference needs.
The Eventranet portal will be accessed from numerous 46" touch screen kiosks around the venue, and supported by sit down kiosks where delegates can further download and interact with the system. All delegates using the wireless network and internet can also interact through their own web enabled devices, such as iPhones, iPads, Blackberries, laptops and PDA's.
The system has been designed around social media resources and concepts such as the big buttons and bright colours will make it easy to navigate around the pages and to access information. All items can be downloaded by delegates onto the USB's which will be provided upon arrival at the Conference. There will be staff onsite at the Conference to assist you through this process and to answer any questions you may have.
Dr Rhonda Galbally AO
Rhonda Galbally's life work has been to strengthen non-profit, education and community organisations. Her dynamic leadership in creating new solutions for community organisations is consolidated by her vast experience in organisational development and management, strategic policy and program development, capacity building, fundraising and grantmaking.
Over twenty-five years her leadership has been tirelessly used to assist community organisations to become more effective in providing Australia's social infrastructure - as important as economic development for our successful transition into the twenty-first
century.
Rhonda has made unique contributions to Australian and international social development by establishing new organisations and programs for Australia and the world from concept to operational success. These include the Australian International Health Institute (Faculty of Medicine, University of Melbourne). In this role Rhonda initiated the Sir Gustav Nossal Fellowship for Leadership in Health Reform and the Australian hub for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Child Vaccination Program. Rhonda established and sustained the world first organisation to use the dedicated tobacco tax for health promotion, the Victorian Health Promotion Foundation (VicHealth). She created the Australian Commission for the Future, which among other areas such as biotechnology, information technology, the future of work and education, began the movement to establish Greenhouse emissions as a vital issue for Australia. Other positions held by Rhonda include the Executive Director of the Myer Foundation and Sidney Myer Foundation, Chair of Philanthropy Australia (then the Australian Association of Philanthropy).
In all of her positions- executive and non-executive, on boards and reviews, Rhonda has successfully ridden the boundary between the commercial and non-profit worlds, forging productive and practical linkages for the better development of both sectors with beneficial outcomes for the wider community.
Prof Trevor Gale
Trevor Gale is Professor of Education and the founding director of the National Centre for Student Equity in Higher Education; an Australian Government funded research centre hosted by the University of South Australia. Previously he was Associate Dean (Research Degrees) in the Faculty of Education, Monash University, where he also taught courses in the sociology of teaching, policy sociology, and qualitative research methodology.
He is a foundation member of the National VET Equity Advisory Council (NVEAC), a member of the National Quality Council (NQC), the founding editor of Critical Studies in Education, and on the editorial panel of the International Journal of Inclusive Education. From 2000 to 2006, Trevor was an executive member of the Australian Association for Research in Education (AARE). As President of AARE in 2005, he led the discipline’s early response when Australia's Research Quality Framework (now the ERA) was first mooted.
Trevor received his PhD in policy sociology in 1997 from the University of Queensland, for which he was awarded the Grassie-Bassett prize, and he has been researching education policy and social justice in education for two decades. He recently led a major project for the Australian Government Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations (DEEWR), which investigated Australian universities’ interventions early in school to increase students’ later participation in higher education.
Trevor is author and co-author of 5 books and over 100 book chapters, journal articles and conference papers. His books include: Just Schooling (OUP 2000) with Kathleen Densmore, Engaging Teachers (OUP 2003; translated into Spanish in 2007) with Kathleen Densmore, Rough Justice (Peter Lang 2005), Educational Research by Association (Sense 2010) with Bob Lingard and Schooling in Disadvantaged Communities (Springer 2010) with Carmen Mills.
Graeme Innes AM
Graeme Innes has been Australia's Disability Discrimination Commissioner since December 2005 and was appointed Race Discrimination Commissioner in July 2009.
Prior to taking on the role of Race Discrimination Commissioner, Graeme spent three and a half years as Human Rights Commissioner. In his roles at the Commission he led or contributed to initiatives including-
- The same sex: same entitlements inquiry, achieving removal of discrimination across federal law;
- Drafting of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, and its ratification by Australia;
- Three inspections of Australia's Immigration Detention facilities
- Development of a National Disability Strategy
- Implementing the Community Partnerships for Human Rights Program
- Finalising the access to premises standards
- The launch of the Lifetime Housing Design strategic plan
- Cinema captioning and audio descriptions.
Graeme is a Lawyer, Mediator and Company Director. He has been a Human Rights Practitioner for almost 30 years in NSW, WA and nationally.
Graeme has been a Member of -
- the NSW Administrative Decisions Tribunal;
- the NSW Consumer, Trader and Tenancy Tribunal; and
- The Social Security Appeals Tribunal;
- As well as a Hearing Commissioner with the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission.
Graeme was Chair of the Disability Advisory Council of Australia, and the first Chair of Vision Australia, Australia's national blindness agency.
In 1995 Graeme was made a Member of the Order of Australia (AM). He was a finalist for Australian of the Year in 2003.
Pam Jonas
B.A. (Hons), Dip. Ed., M.A. Public Policy and Management, GAICD
Pam has over 28 years experience in industry, education, training and employment, working in leadership, senior management, advisory, public policy and research positions in the private and public sectors. Most recently she has worked as Principal Policy Adviser and Research Manager to three major Victorian employer associations and a national VET advisory organisation, which gives her a close working knowledge of VET from a state and national perspective. Her research work in VET policy and particularly in the area of apprenticeship provides her with a strong knowledge base and a depth of insight into the national training system.
Pam has served, and currently serves on a number of public and private-sector boards, statutory authorities, and Ministerial Committees in Victoria. She is a Board Member of The International Partnerships Network (IPN) and the founding Chair of World Education Australia - the Australian branch of World Education, a Boston based International Development agency (NGO).
Pam's work, over the last fifteen years in particular, has been focussed on bringing industry and education together to develop mutually beneficial partnerships for growth, innovation, and effective workforce development. This work has consistently involved high level interaction, negotiation and the provision of policy advice to diverse groups from industry, education and government nationally and internationally.
Pam holds a Masters in Public Policy and Management and she is a member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.
Apart from enjoying the challenge of her work Pam is a keen marathon runner.
Ms Alissa Phillips
Alissa Phillips, Social Entrepreneur and Founder of s.p.a.c.e., holds a Bachelor's Degree of Creative Industries and a Masters in Music Therapy. She applies her qualifications specifically to disability services through her innovative programs, public speaking, consulting and inclusive communities development.
Alissa has won numerous awards for her work in improving the quality of life for people affected by a disability, including 2007 Lord Mayor's Youth Citizen of the Year; University of Queensland's Young Alumni 2008; and most recently she was named as the top Emerging Leader in the category of Society for the Weekend Australian. Alissa has been invited to be part of the Social Pioneers Program for the next year and recognised as the Young Queensland Volunteer for 2009.
Alissa believes that disability and difference in our communities can be embraced through the education and positive experiences of youth and community. We can improve attitudes and relationships between those members of the community who have a disability and those members of the community who do not by engaging people in dynamic discussions and meaningful experiences surrounding disability, social responsibility and what it would take to create an inclusive community.
Alissa is eager to share her unique experiences and skills with other not for profit, community and corporate organisations through professional speaking engagements. Alissa regularly speaks at conferences, for schools and universities, networking breakfasts and community events and forums.
Sheila Riddell
Sheila Riddell is Director of the Centre for Research in Education Inclusion and Diversity, University of Edinburgh, and was previously Director of the Strathclyde Centre for Disability Research, University of Glasgow. After seven years teaching English in a Dorset secondary school, she undertook a PhD at the University of Bristol on the topic of gender and subject option choice. She moved to Scotland in 1988 and since then has researched and written extensively in the fields of education, employment and social care, disability studies and gender and education. Sheila has served on a number of government committees and was a member of the National Equality Panel which reported in January 2010.
Mr Rob Stowell
Rob is the Director of Learning Australia.
In recent years, Rob has undertaken a range of key national assessment and quality assurance assignments in Australia and overseas including the Quality of Assessment Practices [2009], Alternative Frameworks for the Recognition of Workplace Training [2008], and Review of the Trial of the AQTF Excellence Criteria [2008] for the National Quality Council in Australia and the World Bank Review of the TVET system in Swaziland [2008-9].
Most recently, Rob has been working with groups of lead VET practitioners in both Queensland and South Australia on ways of incorporating Assessment for Learning principles into VET programs. This work has focused on developing practical ideas for strengthening the relationships between teaching, learning and assessment in VET.
Rob's presentation will focus on this work and the potential which Assessment for Learning has to improve learner performance of all learners.
A/Prof Leesa Wheelahan
Associate Professor Leesa Wheelahan works at the L.H. Martin Institute for Higher Education Leadership and Management at the University of Melbourne. She is interested in student equity, tertiary education policy, and relations between VET and higher education. Her work around student pathways between school, VET and higher education and the policies that are needed to support these transitions stems from her interest in student equity. She has taught in tertiary education for approximately 16 years, which includes time as a TAFE teacher, in policy development, as an academic developer at Victoria University, as a teacher of VET teachers. Leesa is currently leading a project on the quality of teaching in VET, and VET teacher education programs and continuing professional development.