Community Connections
IWD22: Tania Broadley is all about valuing people and enabling access
Professor Tania Broadley has a literal open door policy – just 10 days into her new role as Pro Vice-Chancellor Education at the University of Canberra, it’s led her to meeting more new colleagues than she expected in that time.
But Tania isn’t one to sit and wait, open door or not. She’ll come to you, whether that means going out to different university faculties and business areas to hear about projects, priorities and challenges, or chatting to the students in line with her for the IT Service Counter in Student Central.
“I was chatting to a student from China just a couple of days ago, and after such a challenging couple of years, it was lovely to hear how happy he was to be able to come back to Australia and continue his studies,” she says.
Our students and their experience at the University are fundamental to the way she views her role. The curriculum, pedagogy, space and technology are all critical factors to consider as we develop the learning experience.
“I’m interested in how learning spaces, both face to face and digital, support different pedagogies and how students experience those spaces – so I am going to be out in our community, talking to staff and students alike, whether that is in the Library or the Refectory or in my office.”
It's all very much in keeping with the outlook of a woman who has built a career around valuing people – believing in their potential – enabling access, catalysing opportunities and celebrating individual and collective success.
“When I think of my career, it has always been about the difference we make in people’s lives and that brings me a great deal of joy,” Tania says.
This difference is a holistic one – it’s about how education can change a whole life, and the many other lives it then touches.
“You see students enter university thinking that they are just here to get a qualification,” she says.
“And then we are able to put a host of services around them – not just academic, but social and pastoral as well – and you see them grow, meet diverse people, change their perspectives and ways of making meaning of the world.”
Then they go out, and they change the world in turn.
“Look at how UC students are making an impact, feeding into industries – enabled by our strong industry linkages, which ensure that our courses are closely aligned to what industry really needs and wants,” Tania says. “UC’s strong graduate outcomes – employability, for instance – have a lot to do with my wanting to be part of the University.”
Tania never tires of seeing the growth process repeat with each new cohort – every time, it takes her back to how education changed her own life.
“I initially grew up in a remote farming community in Western Australia – my school had two rooms, two teachers and 30 students,” she says.
“There was no high school in the town, so experiencing education outside of that community was where I really opened up to the world.
“When you begin to appreciate how education has changed your own life, that’s when you want to inspire others to have the same opportunities.”
After Tania’s first qualification as a teacher, she then decided that what she actually wanted to be was a teacher educator – “I understood it would allow me to make a greater impact, both on teachers in schools, and then more broadly into communities,” she says.
Much of her career has been about this scaling up of impact – the next step was to bridge teacher education and her role as an academic, to find a way to increase access to education for rural and remote communities in Australia via information and communication technologies (ICT), and online and remote learning.
Tania has worked very broadly across education, learning and teaching, and online education sectors, as well as having a strong academic publication record in teacher education, online education, student engagement and learning spaces.
She has spent the last six years in senior leadership roles in the higher education sector, most recently as Associate Deputy Vice-Chancellor Learning and Teaching, and Interim Dean of Education at RMIT – and she is quick to point out that she didn’t do it all alone.
“Having a supportive ecosystem is crucial to your own growth and progress,” she says. “Many of my own opportunities have come about as a result of the guidance of strong, capable women, both in terms of career and personal relationship mentorship.”
Foremost among these was Tania’s PhD supervisor at Curtin University, Professor Sue Trinidad, who was the inaugural Director of the National Centre for Student Equity in Higher Education prior to her retirement.
“She didn’t just supervise my thesis, she snapped a toolkit for my career in place, and made me consider how I wanted to progress my career as an academic,” Tania says.
“I needed to think about more than a research trajectory by having teaching experience, growing industry links and contributing to professional associations. So I knew how to progress my career as I moved into being a sessional and beyond – I don’t know that all supervisors take that approach, but I think it’s invaluable.”
This is the framework that Tania has built on throughout her career, but especially in senior leadership roles, finding ways to enhance careers and opportunities for the academics and professional staff she has worked with, and she looks forward to furthering this in UC, as she continues to always strive for the greatest impact.
Words by Suzanne Lazaroo, photo by Tyler Cherry.
This International Women's Day – and every day – the University of Canberra celebrates the remarkable, inspiring women of our community. #breakthebias