From ARC Discovery Project Successes to Macquarie Research Acceleration Scheme (MQRAS) updates and the 2021 Australian Awards for University Teaching, it’s been an impressive several months for the Faculty.
AWARDS
2021 Australian Awards for University Teaching
Macquarie’s commitment to student learning and teaching excellence has been recognised, with four individuals and one team of educators being named winners at the 2021 Australian Awards for University Teaching (AAUT). All five awards were in the same category, Citation for Outstanding Contribution to Student Learning, which recognises contributions to the quality of student learning in a specific area of responsibility over a sustained period.
Congratulations to Zara Bending from Macquarie Law School who was one of the award recipients for “inspiring the next generation of legal scholars, advocates, and changemakers through holistic mentorship and transformative learning design”.
Academic wins 2020 Organised Crime Book Prize
Dr Rolando Ochoa from the Department of Security Studies & Criminology has won the 2020 Organised Crime Book Prize for his book Intimate Crimes: Kidnapping Gangs and Trust in Mexico City, awarded by the International Association for the Study of Organised Crime (IASOC). The IASOC is a top international association devoted to the study of organised crime in all its facets, and an arm of the Global Initiative Against Organised Crime. The prize will be officially awarded at the American Society for Criminology (ASC) annual conference in Atlanta, US – the largest conference in the field - later in the year. There will also be an IASOC award event later in the year.
Two films made by MCCALL staff won three ATOM Awards
The ATOM Awards are conducted by the Australian Teachers of Media and are awarded for excellence in screen, television and web productions.
THE SKIN OF OTHERS by Associate Professor Tom Murray won the Atom Award for:
- Best Documentary – Doco-Drama
ABLAZE by Dr Alec Morgan won Atom Awards for:
- Best Documentary – Indigenous Video or Website
- Best Documentary – Social and Political Issues
Ablaze was the major project of Dr Alec Morgan’s Macquarie University Research Fellowship, and his supervisor was Associate Professor Tom Murray.
GRANTS
Million dollar tender for School of Education
Dr Janet Dutton has led a team from the School of Education in winning a significant tender from the NSW Department of Education: Mid-Career Transition to Teaching Program ($1,099,496). The Mid-Career Transition to Teaching Program is designed to support mid-career changers to transition into the teaching profession seamlessly from their existing career. This will be achieved through an individualised student-first approach. The Mid-Career Transition to Teaching Program will deliver a high-quality postgraduate stream and remove existing barriers to recruitment: offering recognised prior learning (RPL) and supporting Mathematics and Science (Physics & Chemistry), STEM, and regional and remote area secondary teachers. The program will be cohort-based with a full suite of wrap-around coaching and mentoring support from the point of enrolment to transition into the profession.
The team also includes Professor Mary Ryan, Associate Professor Iain Hay, Associate Professor Michael Cavanagh, Associate Professor Fay Hadley, Associate Professor John DeNobile, Professor Garry Falloon, Dr Kim Wilson, Dr Hye-Eun Chu, Dr Susan Caldis, and Leanne Bamford-Barnes. This tender was made possible by the excellent support from the Academy of Continuing Professional Development in Education. This is an important strategic success for the School of Education and recognises our excellent reputation in teacher education the sector.
ARC Discovery Projects Successes
Professor Dr Martin Bommas and Professor Naguib Kanawati from the Department of History and Archaeology, alongside Associate Professor Craig O’Neill have been awarded $408,881 for their project Crisis as Opportunity: Societal Change in Early Middle Kingdom Egypt. The project aims to address political and social shifts in the ancient Egyptian early Middle Kingdom c. 4000 years ago. For the first time, and with exclusive study concessions from the government of Egypt, material data of the two most significant cemeteries of the period will be investigated. The project expects to generate new knowledge about human interaction during crisis and utilise interdisciplinary research strategies to investigate the emerging opportunities, such as social mobility, for individuals.
Professor Amanda Wise and Associate Professor Selvaraj Velayutham from the School of Social Sciences, alongside Dr Kristine Aquino were awarded $303,442 for their project Social Resilience, Migrant Integration and Informal Sport in Public Space. This project investigates the potential of informal sport in fostering social resilience and cohesion in new migrant communities by analysing how social outcomes are shaped by public spaces and built environments of Australia and Singapore. Expected outcomes and benefits include qualitative evidence of the dynamics that contribute to the formation of successful neighbourhoods and communities, related policy and urban planning recommendations and an enhanced capacity to build urban citizenship among Australia's growing and vulnerable multicultural migrant populations.
Dr Emily O’Gorman from Geography and Planning, alongside academics from other universities, have been granted research funding for their project Narrative Ecologies of Warragamba Dam. Theproject focuses on the proposed raising of the Warragamba Dam wall to explore the role of narrative in analysing and responding to socio-environmental controversies. The project aims to develop new resources for enhancing community understanding and involvement in these complex issues, utilising narrative to enable responses that are creative, inclusive, and just.
Dr Matthew Bailey from the Department of History and Archaeology, alongside academics from other universities, have been granted funding for their project Shop Talk: Department Stores, Shoppers and Consumer Capitalism, 1945-2025. This project aims to provide a deeper understanding of shopping and its significance in everyday Australian life by using oral history interviews with shoppers, workers and managers who have engaged with department stores since 1945. This project expects to produce the first history of the country’s post-war department stores. This should provide significant benefits to researchers examining the retail sector, to Australians working in retail, and to ordinary Australians, whose stories will be placed on the historical record.
Macquarie Research Acceleration Scheme (MQRAS)
Dr Andrew Burridge, Dr Justine Lloyd and Emeritus Professor Richie Howitt from the School of Social Sciences, and Associate Professor Dr Daniel Ghezelbash from the School of Law have received $49,199 for their project Were we all in this together? Sub-national border closures during Covid-19 and the shifting scales of governance and resilience. This benchmark study, of national relevance, will develop relationships with key stakeholders and institutions, to establish a framework for understanding the role and function of sub-national borders in creating and dividing communities.
Associate Professor Penny van Bergen from the School of Education, Associate Professor Tanya Evans from the Department of History and Archaeology, Professor Amanda Barnier from Psychology and Celia Harris from Western Sydney University have received $49,871 for their work Sharing Memory and Identity across Generations: an Innovative Community Reminiscing Program for Adolescents and Older Adults. The role of memory in supporting development of shared identities is not well understood, but older Australians offer a wealth of life stories and wisdom that they can share with younger generations. This innovative project positions adolescents as oral historians to discuss the past with older Australians.
Associate Professor Dr Alice Chik and Dr Sue Ollerhead from the School of Education, Associate Professor Marc Orlando from Linguistics, Dr Andrew Burridge from the School of Social Sciences, Dr Lauren Gorfinkel from MCCALL and Dr Yuanyuan Gu (Centre for Health Economy) have been awarded $39,916 for their project Language Inclusion Index (LI-Index): A tool to evaluate inclusion in multilingual Australia. The LI-Index is a survey tool, currently in development, for organizations to self-assess the degree to which their clients, customers, or users are included or excluded by factors of language. This will be the first tool of its kind.
Dr Kate Gleeson from the School of Law, Associate Professor Shaun Wilson and Professor Marion Maddox from the School of Social Sciences, Dr Robert Ross from Psychology and Dr Julian Droogan from the Department of Security Studies and Criminology have been awarded $48,239.40 for their work Religion and state after crisis: Religiosity and trust in religious organisations after the Australian Royal Commission into Child Sexual Abuse. This project aims to identify trends in religiosity and causes of declining trust in religion. It also examines how these factors inform public attitudes to the relationship between religion and the Australian state.
Dr Mei-fen Kuo from MCCALL and John Fitzgerald from Swinburne University of Technology have been awarded $30,761 for their work Identities in Transition: Uncovering Critical Documents of Chinese Diaspora in Australia and the Impact of Cold War. This project aims to understand the consequences of the Cold War on the way that ethnic Chinese identities had shaped, contested and advanced national identity in Australia by analysing previously neglected archival documents.
Dr Karen Pearlman from MCCALL, Dr Daniela Simone from School of Law and Professor John Sutton from Philosophy have been awarded $49,346 for their work Don’t fix women, fix the system: a prototype methodology for identifying and crediting women’s expertise in early film. This project aims to challenge erasure of women in filmmaking histories. Its integration of expertise in creative practice, cognition, and copyright law will be significant to challenging pervasive theories of authorship that continue to occlude women who work in film.
Additional grants
Dr Kim Wilson, Dr Janet Dutton, and Dr Susan Caldis are carrying out Practitioner Inquiry: A Professional Learning Research Project of Inquiry into Practice, Ascham School. The project will lead and support a practitioner inquiry professional learning program examining teacher attitudes towards research in classroom practice, and research-informed decisions about learning and teaching.
Dr Rebecca Andrews, Associate Professor Fay Hadley, Professor Manjula Waniganayake, Dr Iain Hay, Dr Leanne Holt have been awarded $118,131 from the NSW Department of Education for their work Early Childhood Education Scholarships Mentoring Program. The research team will adopt a co-designed approach and methodology in establishing, implementing and evaluating their project for the Mentoring Program for Scholarship Holders. This project targets scholars enrolled in early childhood teacher education courses in NSW who have been awarded a scholarship by the NSW Department of Education’s Early Childhood Education Scholarship programs.
Dr Daozhi Xu was awarded one of only 3 Freilich ECR Small Grants from the ANU for her project Indigenous People in Chinese Australian Newspapers, 1894–1912: Chinese Perspectives. Her project will examine primarily early Chinese Australian newspapers published between 1894 and 1912 to provide a nuanced understanding of Chinese perspectives on Indigenous people before and after Federation. Moving beyond the divide between race and ethnicity, Dr Xu explores how and why Chinese Australians engaged with Indigenous issues and settler colonial governance of the Indigenous population. Read more here.
Professor Niloufer Selvadurai (School of Law) was awarded funding from the competitive DFAT Council for Arab Australia Relations grants scheme in late 2021 for a project titled Expanding investment in fintech between Australia and the Gulf Region. The project is in partnership with the MQ Incubator, Qatar University and the Qatar Fintech Hub and was awarded $36,154 in addition to significant investment from its external partners. The project will develop information and guidelines, including a web resource, to explain the governance framework of financial technology (fintech) in the Australian and Arab Gulf context and advise on how investors can navigate the complex written and unwritten rules and processes that govern fintech investment and development. This will support both Australian investors in the Gulf region and Gulf region investors in Australia. The project will also enhance cultural relations between Australia and the Arab world, specifically in the context of fintech in the Islamic finance space.
ACHIEVEMENTS
Distinguished recognition
Professor Wendy Rogers from the Department of Philosophy has been recognised as a Distinguished Professor.
First screening
Emeritus Professor Kathryn Millard’s ‘The Bystander Story’ had its first screening at the Antenna Documentary Film Festival on February 6 2022 in the Australian Shorts Competition.