June 2024

14 June 2024

It was great to be in Mildura last week for our second all-staff webinar of the year. During my visit, I also met with campus stakeholders including the Mildura Rural City Council, local health services, and schools, and took part in a fantastic launch event for our new Gabra Biik, Wurruwila Wutja Indigenous Research Centre (more about that below). My thanks to Mildura head of campus Sandy Connor and her team for their warm hospitality.

I’m grateful to Mel Bish for hosting the webinar and leading conversations about our activities in Mildura and across the regions. It was interesting to hear Ash Franks talk with Rebecca Wells from the Mallee Regional Innovation Centre about our work with local partners to benefit students and solve industry challenges. It was also great to hear from our psychology student Priscila Marques de Sousa about her learning journey at La Trobe.

As I said in my email to staff the day after the webinar, there was a very strong level of engagement – with some 1,300 colleagues joining the live stream. This meant there were more questions than could be addressed on the day. Our Internal Communications team is reviewing the questions you submitted and will cover these topics in our regular staff communications.

Mel asked me about the challenges and opportunities facing the higher education sector and my strategic priorities for La Trobe. La Trobe, along with much of the university sector, is facing some significant headwinds – in particular, from the decline in international student enrolments this year due to policy changes designed to reduce net migration. We must focus on driving our growth agenda and building on our strengths, as we continue to implement our 2030 strategy to become ‘more resilient, future-focused and necessarily more efficient.’

We have an excellent foundation in place, as evidenced by the brilliant QS ranking result we announced last week. Achieving the University’s best-ever QS ranking of 217 demonstrates the value of investing in our academic reputation, collaborating with partners, and implementing our sustainability program. It’s also a testament to our research strengths and our brilliant teachers and researchers. Congratulations to everyone who has contributed – we all share in this success.

I’m excited about what La Trobe will achieve in the years ahead and look forward to working with our staff, students and communities to continue having a positive impact in the world.

In the meantime, I’d like to share some recent achievements and activities from across our campuses.

Remarkable research

Our rise in the QS rankings isn’t surprising when you consider that many of our researchers are leaders in their fields.

A great example is the Science of Language and Reading (SOLAR) Lab, co-founded by Pam Snow and Tanya Serry, and based in our School of Education. I joined 300 educators at a conference in Melbourne on evidence-based approaches to literacy education, to hear talks by Pam and Tanya. The conference was also attended by the Deputy Premier of Victoria, the Honourable Ben Carroll, who gave the opening address. SOLAR Lab short courses are designed to advance knowledge and skills in word de-coding and language comprehension. Over the last four years, 12,000 teachers, allied health professionals and parents have enrolled in a SOLAR Lab course – what incredible impact!

You can hear Pam and Tanya talking about reading instruction as part of a recent discussion on ABC Radio’s The Conversation Hour that asked, "Can you teach a love of reading?"

Further to this, it was terrific to see the announcement this week that the Victorian Government's new explicit teaching approach will embed evidence-based teaching and learning, including systematic synthetic phonics, into every classroom.

Healthy futures

La Trobe is one of Australia’s leading universities for our contributions to health and care program innovation. Health workforce shortages are a pressing issue: it’s estimated that Australia will face a shortage of 100,000 nurses by 2025. We know that these shortages are most acute in rural and regional communities, so it was fitting that our nursing and midwifery staff and students held events with community and industry partners in May to celebrate our role in regional health innovation.

We’re also making significant investments in upgrading and expanding the laboratories and clinical simulation facilities across our campuses to boost our capacity to deliver skilled clinicians where they are needed most.

The future is now

I was pleased to host Federal Treasurer Jim Chalmers and Education Minister Jason Clare at our Melbourne campus last month for a tour of our Digital and Bio Innovation Hubs, and meetings with staff leading La Trobe’s digital health initiatives.

This includes the Victorian Virtual Emergency Department, our collaboration with Northern Health and Cisco, that demonstrates how Augmented Reality (AR) can modernise care and reduce pressure on Emergency Departments. AR enables a doctor “in” the Virtual Emergency Department to “see” the same thing as a nurse who is with a patient at another location – they can both listen to heart and breathing rates via a digital stethoscope and see a virtual display with vital signs such as blood oxygen and temperature levels. It sounds like science fiction but is exactly the kind of innovation we can deliver with the technology and expertise based in the Digital Innovation Hub.

Indigenous knowledges

Our new Gabra Biik, Wurruwila Wutja Indigenous Research Centre is a brilliant example of La Trobe’s research leadership and our commitment to culture and inclusion. We will all be enriched by the Centre’s work, which will champion Indigenous research leadership, and support non-Indigenous researchers to engage with Indigenous-led research projects. The Centre’s first project investigating whether methods that have safeguarded the land can help to improve transport systems and disaster response is a great example of its potential to apply insights, knowledges, and perspectives that simply aren’t part of a university researcher’s standard toolkit.

The name of the Centre is also making a difference. At the all-staff webinar last week, Centre Director Professor Julie Andrews reflected on her reasons for choosing the name Gabra Biik, Wurruwila Wutja, which means “Clever Country, Clever People.” Julie recalled an Aboriginal ranger at Lake Mungo saying, “We don’t have a word for knowledge. We call our people clever.” It’s also good to know that Julie is pleased that non-Indigenous people – me included – are taking the time to learn how to pronounce the Centre’s name. “It’s got everyone talking Aboriginal language”, she said. “The shame of speaking Aboriginal language by non-Aboriginal people is going away inside La Trobe, and that’s the best thing about the name.”

Open for business

Megan Fisher and our Industry Engagement team presented a fantastic industry partner showcase last month that drew a big crowd of partners and collaborators to the John Scott Meeting House at our Melbourne campus. The evening was an opportunity to promote the partnership ecosystem we’re developing across the University and hear about some of the collaborative projects being done by La Trobe researchers and industry partners.

Visitors also went on tours of our facilities at the Digital Innovation Hub and La Trobe Institute for Molecular Science. Well done to everyone involved in putting on such a brilliant showcase – it was clear we have generated real momentum in our mission to work with industry partners.

The team is continuing to promote and support industry engagement. I encourage you to sign up for the Commercialisation - Pathways to Impact forum on Thursday 27 June.

Pressing on

The La Trobe University Press has won another award, with Marek Kowalkiewicz’s book The Economy of Algorithms: AI and the Rise of the Digital Minions receiving a silver medal at the 2024 Independent Publishers Book Awards for the best work addressing current social or humanitarian issues.

With luck we could have another award on our bookshelf soon: Ryan Cropp’s biography Donald Horne: A Life in the Lucky Country has been shortlisted for best nonfiction work in the 2024 ACT Literary Awards. Winners are announced on 27 June.

There was a packed house at Readings bookshop in Carlton on 16 May for the launch of the La Trobe University Press book co-authored by La Trobe Asia’s Bec Strating, Girt by Sea. The book makes the case for a holistic view of regional security and is having a discernible influence on policy. Australia’s Foreign Minister, Penny Wong, launched Girt by Sea in Adelaide and has said the book is a powerful contribution to security discourses in Australia. Well done, Bec!

The next book being published by the Press is Barbara Minchinton’s Madame Brussels: The Life and Times of Melbourne's Most Notorious Woman, which will be in bookshops from 2 July. It tells the little-known story of Caroline Hodgson, the woman behind the alter ego of nineteenth-century Melbourne brothel keeper Madame Brussels. It follows Barbara’s previous La Trobe University Press book, The Women of Little Lon: Sex Workers in Nineteenth-Century Melbourne, which won the History Publication Prize at the 2022 Victorian Community History Awards.

Amazing alumni

Last year’s La Trobe Distinguished Alumni Award winners included a former refugee turned community advocate, a leading family therapy practitioner, a globally recognised geneticist, and the Australian Government’s Chief Nursing and Midwifery Officer. They joined an extraordinary list of La Trobe graduates we have honoured with Distinguished Alumni Awards for their impact across fields including science, business, politics, broadcasting and sport.

Nominations for the 2025 Distinguished Alumni Awards close on Friday 21 June. If you know a La Trobe alumni who deserves to be recognised for their exceptional impact and achievements, you can nominate them here.

Upcoming events

La Trobe Asia is presenting a timely discussion on ‘The State of Democracy in Asia’ following recent elections in India, Indonesia, South Korea and Taiwan. Newly appointed La Trobe Asia Deputy Director Ruth Gamble will chair a discussion on 19 July with former Australian Representative to Taiwan Kevin Magee AO, Dr Priya Chacko from the University of Adelaide, and Professor Vedi Hadiz from the University of Melbourne. You can register to attend online or go to the in-person event at our City campus.

In closing

As you can see, it’s been a busy month across the University.

As we head into the winter months, I’d like to congratulate our teaching and support staff on successfully completing Semester 1. Good luck to those managing exams and marking papers over the next few weeks.

Best wishes,

Theo