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Academic leadership project gains grant
A University of the Sunshine Coast senior staff member has gained a $219,000 competitive grant to develop a handbook on academic leadership.
USC’s Executive Projects Unit director Don Maconachie received the Australian Learning and Teaching Council (ALTC) funding last month for a collaborative project involving the University and consulting company Phillips KPA.
Mr Maconachie will work with Phillips KPA principals Dr Craig McInnis, Professor Paul Ramsden and David Phillips in distilling key principles and practices of academic leadership from projects that have received ALTC funding since 2006.
“This will be a bit of a capstone project, drawing together many of the lessons of all of the ALTC’s leadership projects,” he said.
The ALTC was established by the Commonwealth Government in 2006 to lift the quality and prestige of university learning and teaching. It will cease operations at the end of this year, but most of its work will continue within the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations.
“The main outcome of this project will be guidance for university leaders on the characteristics of effective academic leadership programs,” Mr Maconachie said.
“These will be captured in a single handbook that will then be distributed to the sector. It will feature seven case studies of best practices from around the sector.”
Mr Maconachie said the handbook would focus on leadership development for senior staff such as Pro Vice-Chancellors, Executive Deans and Deans, Heads of Schools, and Associate Deans for Learning and Teaching.
“It will particularly focus on leadership that enhances academic productivity and positive academic environments for staff and students, and the developmental programs that support this quality of leadership,” he said.
“It’s based on the idea that effective academic leadership enhances both teaching and learning.”
Mr Maconachie said the three Phillips KPA principals had high profiles in leadership in universities and their company had made an outstanding contribution to Australian higher education over a long period, including supporting USC with a range of projects.
He said the academic leadership handbook project, to be managed by Dr McInnis and completed by the middle of 2012, was the third ALTC project grant USC had won.
“This, and USC’s other ALTC successes, such as its record with citations and the recent program award, confirm USC’s status as an excellent teaching institution,” he said.
— Terry Walsh