SPEAKERS

Emeritus Professor Denise Bradley AC 

Emeritus Professor Denise Bradley AC, the former Vice Chancellor and President of the University of South Australia has been extensively involved in national education policy groups for more than two decades. She was a member of the Commonwealth Tertiary Education Commission (CTEC) and later of the National Board of Employment, Education and Training (NBEET). She was deputy chair of the Higher Education Council of NBEET. In 2002 she was a member of the Australian Government's Higher Education Review Reference group. In 2008 she chaired the Expert Panel which reviewed higher education in Australia and recommended a new framework for higher education. 

Her other significant roles have included the following:

Foundation Director of the Australian Universities Quality Agency
Member of the national Committee for Quality Assurance in Higher Education
President and Chair of IDP Education Australia Limited
Treasurer of the International Association of University Presidents
Member of the Board of the Australian Vioce Chancellors Committee
Member of the Board of the Australian American Fulbright Commission
President of the Australian College of Educators
Chair of the South Australian Training and Skills Commission
Member of the Board of the Business/Higher Education Round Table

She is currently Interim Chair of the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (TEQSA); Chair of the Australian Health Workforce Advisory Council (AHWAC);  a member of the Education Infrastructure Fund Advisory Board; a member of the Australian National Commission for UNESCO; a Director of SEEK Ltd.; a member of the NSW Partnerships Evaluation Committee;  and Chair of VERNet

On Australia Day 2008 Professor Bradley was made a Companion of the Order of Australia, Australia's highest honour, in recognition of her service to higher education.

Stuart Billingham Emeritus Professor of Lifelong Learning York St John University , UK

Stuart worked part-time and full-time in Further and Higher Education for just over 30 years as tutor, lecturer and researcher, programme leader, head of school, and Director, before stepping down from full-time employment, when Pro Vice Chancellor (External) at York St John University, in the summer of 2010.     His postgraduate study and research, teaching, academic writing, and policy development work has centred on issues of educational inequality and widening participation, especially in higher education. In addition to speaking at national and international conferences on widening participation, he has also contributed directly to national policy development in this field. He was an inaugural member of the national Aimhigher Evidence Steering Group, and of the Ministerial Task Group which advised the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) on good practice guidance for targeting widening participation activities and resources published in May 2007. Stuart was the UK academic representative on the Council of Europe Steering Committee for Higher Education and Research (CDESR) 2009-2010, and Editor of the European Access Network (EAN) e-newsletter (www.ean-edu.org) from 2005 to 2010.   Stuart was appointed Chair of the North Yorkshire Business Education Partnership (NYBEP) in June 2010. NYBEP’s mission is “to develop the future workforce by delivering work-related learning and engaging employers in education”. Its strap-line is “nurturing talent for successful futures”.   Most recently Stuart has accepted the position of Co-Director of the 2013 World Congress on Access to Education, see (www.ean-edu.org)    Stuart’s most recent publication is: ‘Too busy to come’: what future for widening participation? In Peter Jones, John Storan, Anthony Hudson and Jeff Braham (eds), Which Way Now to Widen Participation: Lifelong Learning, Economy and Society, pp. 61-75 London, Forum for Access and Continuing Education, 2011 (ISBN 978-999-11-9080-5).

Alistair McCulloch, Professor in Research Education, University of South Australia, Adelaide

Alistair took up his current post  at UniSA having previously spent 12 years as Dean of Research and Knowledge Transfer at the UK’s Edge Hill University where he was responsible for the institution’s research managements and policies and also the quality and development of the university’s research degree programmes. An active participant in the national debates over the development of British doctoral education, in 2004 he was a member of the group that revised the UK Quality Assurance Agency’s Code of Practice for Postgraduate Research Degree Programmes, a member of the Executive Committee of the UK Council for Graduate Education (UKCGE) between 2004 - 2009 and a joint-coordinator of the Society for Research into Higher Education’s (SRHE) Postgraduate Issues Network (PIN) over the same period. He remains a member of the Editorial Board of the SRHE PIN's series 'Issues in Postgraduate Education: Management, Teaching and Supervision'. Whilst at Edge Hill, he was instrumental in the establishment of the University’s Widening Participation Research Centre which he was chair of until he moved to Australia. Himself a product of UK widening participation in the 1970s, his first research post was in the area of Access to Higher Education and his most recent work has been on the emerging area of widening participation to doctoral education - an idea whose time, he believes – has come.

Thomas G. Mortenson , Senior Scholar, The Pell Institute for the Study of Opportunity in Higher Education, USA

Thomas G. Mortenson is Senior Scholar at The Pell Institute for the Study of Opportunity in Higher Education in Washington, DC. and an independent higher education policy analyst living in Oskaloosa, Iowa.   Tom's policy research focuses on opportunity for postsecondary education and training and the ways public policy fosters or impedes access to that opportunity.  He has special concern for populations that are under-represented in higher education.  His studies have addressed academic and financial preparation for college, access, choice, persistence, attainment, and labor force entry of college graduates.  He is particularly interested in public and private finance of higher education opportunity.  He has been employed in policy research and budget analysis roles for the University of Minnesota, Illinois Board of Higher Education, Illinois State Scholarship Commission, and the American College Testing Program.  

Currently Tom is editor and publisher of Postsecondary Education OPPORTUNITY, provides consulting services on higher educational opportunity policy to state and national organizations, and makes presentations on educational opportunity throughout the US and in Europe.  

In 2010 Tom received the Walter O. Mason Award from the Council for Opportunity in Education. "By telling and repeating, and telling and repeating, and then repeating again the odds facing low-income students aspiring to attend and graduate from college … Tom Mortenson has helped to keep the contrast between the articulated ideals of the United States with respect to educational opportunity … and the reality facing low-income students in the public consciousness.

Mary Tupan-Wenno, President of the European Access Network, The Netherlands

Mary Tupan-Wenno is the President of the European Access Network which is the only European-wide, non-organisational organisation for widening participation in Higher Education.  Mary shared some of the research that has been recently undertaken within Europe that addressed how different countries deal with the education of immigrants.  This research focused on Higher Education and found that there was very little information on inequities within tertiary education and little emphasis on collecting information on the equity of outcome.  Of the data that was available it was shown was that there was a particular relationship between socio-economic background and participation in Higher Education and that in some countries there were serious challenges to the inclusion of ethnic minorities. Mary went on to discuss further research from several countries that focused on how these issues could be addressed and investigated what support mechanisms are necessary for successful participation.