Meet the 2012 scholarship recipients

The Assessment Committee was impressed with the standard of applications received and is pleased to announce the following staff members as recipients of the 2012 General Staff Travelling Scholarship:

• Sarah Fletcher, Career Services Manager, Careers and Employer Relations, Business School
• Simon French, Director, Graduate Studies Office, Deputy Vice-Chancellor Education
• Mark Moeller, Landscape and Grounds Manager, Campus Infrastructure Services
• Paragi Trivedi, Principal Auditor, Audit & Risk Management, Office of General Counsel

Sarah Fletcher - Career Services Manager, Careers and Employer Relations, Business School

Sarah is part of a small team which provides students with a growing and diverse array of opportunities to gain industry experience, across all business disciplines.

She is going to benchmark the team’s activities against those of four universities in North America and Canada, and look at alternate, innovative ways to deliver work placements, particularly in the area of 'community engaged learning and teaching'.

“The Business School has recently launched its Industry Placement Program which provides students with the opportunity to do work placements with a range of corporate organisations in the city as well as offering work experience with a broader range of employers, in regional settings such as Port Macquarie, and internationally, in north America and China”, Sarah said. “Students have responded positively to having a wide choice of experiences which contributes to their learning.”

Sarah is also looking for ideas for the Inspired by Business Program - a new scheme of flexible admission to the Business School for students from schools that have been recognised in the low socio-economic category by the Federal government. Students will receive financial support and access to a pastoral support program to assist in their transition from school to University.

“The universities I have chosen have for a long time considered work experience to be a part of the curriculum”, Sarah said. “It’s an exciting opportunity for me to go and watch their programs in action rather than reading about them on a website. I am also keen to understand and learn about the programs they have in place for school leavers from a wide variety of social and cultural backgrounds.”

Sarah has a background in education and training; she joined the careers and employer relations team at the Business School five years ago and now shares management responsibilities.

Find out more about inclusive teaching.

Simon French - Director, Graduate Studies Office, Deputy Vice-Chancellor Education

Simon heads a small centralised team that develops policies and provides support to faculties in addressing problems that are best solved using a university-wide approach. He wants to look at the governance structure and the design and management of work spaces for higher degree research students.

“Maintaining a balance between the benefits of local-level management of individual students, and consistency and quality assurance at an institutional level, is always hard. There is a constant tension between the two in a huge devolved institution like ours”, Simon said. “The University also faces a major challenge in providing work spaces for higher degree students that meet their needs and is cost effective and sustainable. We have 4200 higher degree research students and only around half the number of desks. These students have different needs depending on their field of research and work patterns that are very different to coursework students. When renovating or building new spaces for research students, we need to be both efficient and meeting students’ needs”.

Simon will visit half a dozen universities in North America which are similar to Sydney in terms volume of higher degree research activity and organisational structure. “We have very few peers in Australia. Only Melbourne is comparable to us in terms of number of higher degree research students”, Simon said. “It’s great to go there and talk to our American counterparts face-to-face as there is only so much they will tell you in formal correspondence. In terms of work space design for this type of student, there is no literature on the subject, so comparing best practice at comparable institutions is invaluable. The scholarships recognise that general staff contribute to innovation; we need to be encouraged to bring ideas to the table if we are looking to improve how we do things. This work is a pressing strategic need, and needed to be done anyway; the scholarship will allow me to do it better.”

Simon started at the University 19 years ago as a laboratory assistant, cleaning rat cages. He has worked in a variety of faculty and centralised services roles, and describes himself as a career administrator.

Find out more about the Graduate Studies Office.

Mark Moeller - Landscape and Grounds Manager, Campus Infrastructure Services

Mark and his staff of 20 look after more than 100 hectares of very diverse urban grounds covering extensive lawns, a variety of gardens both native and European, and 2000 plus trees, including some heritage classed ones such as the famous jacaranda tree in the Quadrangle. The campuses are used by a population of staff and students the size of a small city and also provide a habitat for birds and several other fauna.

He will be visiting three universities in North America, focusing on three areas: benchmarking grounds maintenance; landscape sustainability; landscape master planning.

“The US is a world leader when it comes to landscape management”, Mark said. “I hope to gain an insight into how my counterparts manage their campus grounds.”

Mark joined the University 19 years ago as a gardener. “It’s a privilege to be doing this job” he said.

Paragi Trivedi - Principal Auditor, Audit & Risk Management, Office of General Counsel

A chartered accountant, Paragi is using the scholarship to work as an auditor at Harvard University for three months. “I cold-called – I had an idea of what I wanted to do. I looked up the name of the Director of Audit and Risk at Harvard and emailed her. She responded within a few hours with an enthusiastic invitation to visit”, Paragi said.

“I chose Harvard because it is a pre-eminent, diverse and large institution to team up with. There are some differences and some similarities. Their audit department is almost twice the size of ours and they have specialist auditors that look after all the different facets of operations, such as finance and compliance, IT systems and capital works. Based on my conversations with the Harvard auditors so far, they too face a number of similar challenges. It’s a great opportunity for us as a University to exchange ideas, collaborate and learn”.

“On a personal level, I want to improve both my technical and interpersonal skills. When you are auditing in a public sector organisation you need to focus much more on the people aspect of the job, you need to take a consultative approach and engage managers to work with you to ensure they don’t just understand the compliance requirements but have a genuine commitment to continual improvement.”

Paragi joined the University six years ago as an assistant auditor.