July 2024

4 July 2024

I hope you’re enjoying semester break and the opportunity to do field work, attend conferences, and plan for Semester 2 – or take some leave from work to spend time with friends and family.

Earlier this week, I joined the Chancellor and members of our University Council on our Bendigo campus, where we held the July Council meeting. On Monday night, we hosted a dinner for local stakeholders and university partners. On Tuesday, researchers from the Violet Vines Marshman Centre for Rural Health Research and the School of Education gave presentations about their work; and Council members met with staff and students and went on a tour of the campus. Well done to the teams that organised the visit, which was a terrific showcase of La Trobe’s leadership in regional research and education.

The Chancellor and I were also in Bendigo last week for a community roundtable that considered ways to expand the University’s hugely successful Regional Pathways Program. We launched the Program in Albury-Wodonga in 2017, expanded to the Bradford Shepparton Pathways Program in 2019, and it’s now running at all regional campuses. It supports Year 11 and 12 students to transition to university and has an incredible success rate with over 70 per cent of participants on track to attend university.

The Pathways Program shows what we can achieve by working with philanthropic partners. We’re grateful to the Gillespie Family Foundation for helping to establish the Program and challenging us to match their initial donation with additional philanthropic support. Since then, we’ve worked with generous individuals, trusts, and corporate supporters to amplify our impact in Albury-Wodonga, Shepparton, Mildura, and Bendigo. I’m confident we can continue to scale up the Program to partner with more schools and have even greater impact.

Last week, I spent time in Canberra meeting with Ministers and Departmental officials. Government has recently announced some important reviews, to which La Trobe will respond. This includes consultation on establishing a Managed Growth Funding System with a sector-wide pool of Commonwealth-supported places and institutional managed growth targets. Government is also consulting with the sector about the proposed Australian Tertiary Education Commission that will oversee system funding, data collection, and reporting; and conducting a review of regional migration settings that provides an opportunity to advocate for the importance of international education in the regions. We will keep staff up to date as these reviews are completed over the coming months.

Meanwhile, there has been a lot of work happening across our campuses. I’d like to mention a few recent achievements and activities.

Rural nursing leadership

Congratulations to Jane Mills, Dean of the La Trobe Rural Health School, on being appointed as the Chair of the Australian College of Nursing Rural and Remote Faculty, which is the highest profile advocacy position in Australia for nurses working outside metropolitan areas. This prestigious appointment is a testament to Jane’s leadership and expertise in rural, regional, and remote nursing and health program development and education. It also recognises La Trobe’s role in helping to address health workforce shortages in regional communities.

Regional writing

Our Professor of Public Engagement, Clare Wright, is co-curator of the 2024 Bendigo Writers Festival being held from 16 to 18 August. Clare has programmed a series of ‘La Trobe presents’ discussions that feature La Trobe academics and alumni, and will join history colleague Yves Rees to co-host the Festival’s Closing Gala that includes interviews with legendary Australian author Kate Grenville and the winner of this year’s Stella Prize, Alexis Wright. The full festival program and ticketing information is available here.

I also encourage you to listen to the new Literary La Trobe podcast hosted by Clare that showcases writing and research by La Trobe staff, students, and alumni. The latest episodes feature recordings from the 2023 Bendigo Writers Festival, for which Clare was guest curator.

Funding for the future

It was brilliant to see La Trobe secure funding of $11.05 million from the ARC for four projects under the Industrial Transformation Research Program and Linkage Grant Project scheme.

Well done to Tony Bacic, who is leading a $5 million Protected Cropping Hub that aims to develop a high quality horticultural and medicinal crops production industry in Australia; and to Conor Hogan, who is leading a $4.7 million Molecular Biosensors at Point-of-Use Hub that aims to accelerate the growth of Australia's emerging biosensing industry.

And congratulations to Chris Maylea and Grant Van Riessen who have secured funding under the Linkage scheme to work with partners on projects addressing trauma-informed legal services and scalable fabrication of diamond quantum microprocessors.

Deepa Balakrishnan and her team in the Research Grant Development and Transformation office continue to do fantastic work in helping our researchers produce excellent results in the major grant programs.

Excellent emeriti

La Trobe has a vibrant emeriti community made up of scholars who are world leaders in their fields and continue to contribute to intellectual life at the University. Recently, some emeritus staff have been recognised for their expertise and contributions to research.

Geoff Cumming received a 10 Year Impact Award from American academic publisher Sage. Geoff’s paper, The New Statistics: Why and How, which was published in the journal Psychological Science, is one of the most-cited articles published in any of Sage’s 400 journals since 2013. The paper has been influential in fostering statistical approaches that support the principle of Open Science.

It was terrific to see one of our newest emeritus staff, recently retired DVC for Research and Industry Engagement, Sue Dodds, appointed by Federal Education Minister Jason Clare as Deputy Chair of the new Australian Research Council Board. The Board will make independent decisions about the distribution of $800 million in university research grants each year under the National Competitive Grants Program. Sue’s appointment recognises her outstanding record as a senior research leader in the Australian academic community.

Finally, I was pleased to say a few words at a wonderful event held last week to reflect on the career and achievements of Cheryl Dissanayake. Cheryl is one of the world’s leading autism researchers and has demonstrated extraordinary leadership in establishing the Olga Tennison Autism Research Centre at La Trobe, which was Australia’s first centre dedicated to autism research. The farewell showcased the ways that Cheryl has very successfully translated research into programs that provide profound and tangible benefits for the community. I’m very pleased that Cheryl is joining the ranks of our Emeritus Professors at La Trobe!

Upcoming events

The University is presenting some fascinating discussions during July.

I’m looking forward to introducing an Ideas and Society and La Trobe Asia event on 16 July about the AUKUS trilateral security partnership. Bec Strating from La Trobe Asia will chair a discussion with two of Australia’s leading security experts: Hugh White from ANU and Peter Dean from the United States Study Centre at the University of Sydney. You can book here.

On 25 July, La Trobe University Distinguished Alumnus and DVCA at the University of Tasmania, Ian Anderson, is presenting the 2024 Violet Vines Marshman Rural Health Oration in Bendigo. Ian will talk about ways to transform Indigenous health in rural Australia. You can register to attend here.

Another important annual lecture is being held in Shepparton on 24 July, when former Governor of Victoria the Hon Linda Dessau AC will present the 2024 La Trobe Fairley lecture. It’s essential to book tickets to hear this talk on The many dimensions of Melbourne and regional Victoria: The perspectives of a former Governor.

In closing

While it’s currently semester break, planning is well underway for our 2024 Open Day Series. Open Day is our most important annual recruitment event and a chance to show potential students and their families why La Trobe is such a great place to study.

I encourage you to get involved if you have capacity to help in roles such as welcoming visitors, helping with directions, and answering general questions about La Trobe.

I look forward to seeing our campuses come to life for this year’s Open Day series in August and hope to see you at one of our campuses during the month.

Best wishes,
Theo