Back when I was at Federation University, 2020, they offered a Cross-School Grant (internal). It was up to $10,000 for a research team with at least one Early Career Researcher (ECR) and at least one person from Education, Arts and Business. I originally had the idea to evaluate a new program where the Learning Skills Advisors (LSAs) spend 5 minutes visiting classes on campus in the School of Business. We were going to trial it in Arts and Education as well. But then the pandemic hit and on campus classes were all cancelled.

I did however speak to a librarian who suggested I talk to an amazing woman named Ellen Sabo who was a project manager in the department that looked after student support services. Ellen was my boss back when I was an undergraduate and working as a student mentor. Great lady! Anyway Ellen had run these “boot camps” before orientation specifically to help students study online, as they all had to do because of the pandemic. There was also a booklet of information for students studying online (paper copy) that was mailed to students that requested it. So instead I decided to evaluate these initiatives and Ellen was the first one on board.

Then I reached out to Bryce Magnuson from Marketing/economics (in other words the mandatory Business academic). I didn’t know him that well but we had had a number of corridor conversations about first year students and how to support them. I knew he cared deeply for his students and he signed up as well. Next was David Waldron from Arts who is the most passionate, animated History academic I have ever met. Again, I didn’t know him that well but I knew he was passionate about helping new students. So I thought this would be the team and we got started.

We soon learnt that as I was only a sessional (casual) I could not be on the grant (again!) I could only be a research assistant and I did not count as the academic from the school of Education. At that point Anna Fletcher joined us to cover the school of Education. The 5 of us are the “grant team” and we got that grant, $8000. Bryce officially became the project lead, although everyone knew it was my project and I continued to do a lot of the organisation, setting meetings and so on. Mostly I was the driver, the motivator, the glue of the team and Bryce made the final call on all decisions and was the name on the paperwork.

That is not to say that he didn’t have a major contribution. In fact he really stepped up the moment he was officially the project lead. In 2020 data was gathered and analysed.

2021 there was a special edition for the Journal of University Learning and Teaching Practice (if that sounds familiar, this is a separate special issue, same journal!). Our abstract was accepted but the suggestion was made that we combine our data with a Michelle Joubert from the University of the Free State, South Africa! Well a neon sign saying “International collaboration” flashed before my eyes and that was all the convincing we needed!

I think the challenges of international collaboration are worthy of an entire blog post all of their own, so this time around I will simply say, there were many challenges! One significant one was that Ellen had some serious personal issues and she disappeared for a couple of months with no contact! She did however swoop back in and save the day a couple of weeks before the full article had to be submitted. She did some very excellent work editing our draft that was over the word limit.

The special edition is meant to come out this August I think, could be September! We have not yet heard back from the reviewers, so that timeline should be rather tight we expect! Stay tuned for more information on that one!

The only other thing of note here is that Michelle and I are likely to be working together on another project. This time Karen Seary (my Dean, or perhaps her title is Associate Dean?) is on board and another co-worker here at CQU. We plan to look at student preparedness and compare Australian enabling students with South African students in the equivalent sort of program over there. Haven’t really had our first proper meeting about it yet… once again, stay tuned!