The People

Project Leader

Professor Sandra Jones,  School of Management, RMIT University
(Synergies in distributed leadership and Benchmarking distributed leadership)

Professor Sandra Jones(M.Ed, GCL&T, PhD, M.A; Dip Ed.) is both a discipline expert and a practitioner in leadership and  particularly in leadership in universities. Her experience has included formal leadership roles at each of the -levels that characterise university leadership – as a course and program design at School level (Deputy Head of School of Management), at College level (Director of Teaching Quality Business) and institution-wide (Director of Learning and Teaching Development). Her leadership extends beyond her formal leadership roles, Sandra is an ALTC citation winner (2006) and the recipient of several  RMIT teaching awards, including the Vice Chancellors Distinguished Teaching Award  (2009).  Sandra’s leadership influence extends across the higher education sector as an ALTC/OLT assessor for Australian Awards for University Teaching  and grant applications. She is a member of several expert reference groups on several ALTC/OLT funded projects, and an Australian Research Council international reviewer and fellowship assessor. Professor Jones  discipline expertise is in employment relations and she has published over 60 refereed journal articles, chapters in edited books related to higher education and conference papers.

Project Team - partner universities

Dr Marina Harvey, Learning and Teaching Centre, Macquarie University
(Synergies in distributed leadership and Benchmarking distributed leadership)

Dr Marina Harvey (PhD, M.Ed, B.Ed) , an OLT National Teaching Fellow, is a senior lecturer in academic development. She has a strong background in participatory action research, initiating supported reflection sessions within participatory action research to develop leadership capacity. With many years of research and practice into supporting quality teaching with sessional staff she has been awarded OLT project and extension project grants (BLASST.edu.au) and her national fellowship. Marina has also received national and university citations for outstanding contributions to student learning. Her scholarship focuses on quality learning and teaching with sessional staff, distributed leadership in higher education, reflection for learning and mentoring.

Associate  Professor Geraldine Lefoe, CEDIR, University of Wollongong
(Synergies in distributed leadership and Benchmarking distributed leadership)

Assoc. Prof. Geraldine Lefoe, (Ed. D, M.Ed, Dip. Teach, B.Ed) is an academic developer with over fifteen years of experience. Assoc. Prof. Lefoe co-led an ALTC commissioned project with ASCILLITE focusing on user needs for the Carrick Exchange 2006-2008. She was the project leader for the completed 2006 ALTC funded Leadership Grant (LE69), distributive leadership for learning and teaching; developing the faculty scholar model and has been on the reference group of several completed projects. Associate Professor Lefoe has published over 50 refereed journal articles, conference papers and book chapters related to leadership in higher education, educational technology and improving learning and teaching.

In 2011 Dr Lefoe lead the ALTC funded LD 1212 Subject - Coordinators Leading Professional Development for Sessional Staff http://classleadership.com 

Andrelyn Applebee (team member 2009-2010) Flexible Learning and Teaching Unit, Australian Catholic University
(Synergies in distributed leadership)

Andrelyn Applebee (M.Ed., B.Ed., Dip Teach) is an experienced leader, and in her role at the Institute for Teaching and Learning at the University of Sydney, Ann modelled a distributed leadership approach to building training and support programs for eLearning initiatives. Together with research into how university teachers conceive of the learning environment, Ann has written about the ‘balancing act’ academics must undergo in their daily work and the need for tertiary institutions to embed change capacity in through developing communities of practice.

Dr. Annette Schneider, rsm (team member 2010-2011), Learning and Teaching Centre, Australian Catholic University.
(Synergies in distributed leadership)

In 2011 Dr Schneider is the course co-ordinator for the Graduate Certificate in Higher Education. She is an experienced educator, having worked in the secondary and tertiary sectors within Catholic education for 34 years. Prior to joining the Learning and Teaching Centre, she was a member of the ACU School of Educational Leadership and an online adviser.  Her areas of interest and expertise include educational leadership and governance, leadership formation, research into online teaching and learning in the Higher education context and research supervision. In 2005, Dr Schneider was awarded an ACU Faculty of Education Excellence in Teaching Award and in 2009, she received an ALTC citation for outstanding contributions to student learning. Dr Schneider is also a Sister of Mercy involved in cross-ministry Mercy Ethos leadership formation and is Chair of the Sisters of Mercy, Melbourne Congregation, Research and Heritage Committee.

Professor Roger Hadgraft RMIT
(Benchmarking distributed leadership)

Professor Hadgraft (BE(Hons), MEngSc, DipCompSc, PhD) is an Innovation Professor in Engineering Education in the School of Aerospace, Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering at RMIT University. He is a civil engineer with more than 15 years involvement in leading change in engineering education, with a particular focus on problem/project-based learning (PBL), at RMIT, Monash and Melbourne Universities, including a focus recently on sustainable engineering. He is an ALTC Discipline Scholar in Engineering and ICT with Prof. Ian Cameron from UQ, developing the draft national academic standards. He is currently Program Director for the Bachelor of Sustainable Systems Engineering and also works on curriculum issues across the College of Science, Engineering and Health.

Project manager

Dr Kevin Ryland   Education Project Management Pty Ltd
(Synergies in distributed leadership and Benchmarking distributed leadership)

Dr Kevin Ryland (BSc Hons, MEd, PhD) is a project manager for a number of projects on Australian higher education, recently this has included work on leadership in universities and research education. These projects include the one represented by this site and he managed an Australian and New Zealand wide study on the development of doctoral supervisors (including a large scale survey of supervisors across Australia and New Zealand. He is responsible for an Australian and New Zealand web-based research supervisor development resource.  He also provides independent consultancy to a number of Australian universities on matters related to doctoral education.