Adelaide Education Academy has its first class of 2016

Wednesday, 23 March 2016

The University of Adelaide will today officially launch its new Adelaide Education Academy, comprised of academic staff who have chosen to specialise in teaching - the first such academy in an Australian university.

The move is aimed at continuing to transform the teaching and learning experience at the University, for the benefit of both students and staff.

The University will today induct the first 49 of a planned 100 academics into the Adelaide Education Academy.

Among the initial members of the Academy are highly regarded teaching staff across each of the University's five Faculties.

"In a research-intensive university, it is a challenge for staff to be recognised as real academics for teaching alone. By establishing the Adelaide Education Academy, we are saying teaching is a noble career in a university, with its own unique rewards and privileges," says the Vice-Chancellor and President, Professor Warren Bebbington.

"In particular, we are opening a pathway for staff to be promoted all the way to professor for their teaching alone.

"Among the first members of the Academy are academics who have played an outstanding role in the quality of education at our University for many years. Through its members, the Academy will become a symbol of the University's unique learning and teaching proposition which, to the great benefit of our students, is at the centre of our strategic direction."

New Academy members include Associate Professor Elizabeth Koch OAM, Head of Classical Performance with the Elder Conservatorium of Music, and Associate Professor Colin Kestell from the School of Mechanical Engineering. Both are past winners of the University's long-running Stephen Cole the Elder Prize for Excellence in Teaching.

"The Education Academy is an outstanding initiative to promote teaching, encourage collaboration between staff from different Faculties and develop new curricula and teaching methodologies," says Associate Professor Koch. "I am most looking forward to sharing and learning from other Education Specialists from across the University. It can only enhance teaching practice and produce invaluable experiences not only for staff but most importantly for our students."

Associate Professor Kestell says: "The Education Academy is an exciting step towards sustainably empowering the care and quality of teaching that students deserve from a leading university. This self-driven community will crucially stimulate well-informed scholarly practice, while cultivating the required agility to continually develop pertinent curricula for a (technology driven) rapidly transforming world."

Members of the Academy have exclusive opportunities to bid for learning and teaching advancement grants, apply for promotion based on their teaching and learning activities, and have access to support in the form of teaching-focused special study programs.

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