Firstly I’d like to welcome two new Directors to the AUCEA Board, Carol-Joy Patrick and Traci Gamblin, and I’m looking forward to their active participation at Board and Committee meetings as well as at other AUCEA events and activities.


Carol-Joy is an AUCEA Associate Member (Individual) and was the founder of the Australian Collaborative Education Network (ACEN). Carol-Joy continues to be a very active ACEN member and she is currently the Coordinator of Service Learning at Griffith University. Traci is our first community-based Director and she is currently the Senior Manager of Development with Volunteering WA in Perth. Traci has an active involvement with all WA-based universities, particularly in the areas of Service Learning and related research.


Earlier this month the Board held a very productive two-day workshop in Sydney to review the current Strategic Directions and to determine our focus for 2012-14. I invite you to read our – 2011 in review – document. A number of the items are highlighted in this e-news, and as always your feedback is welcome.


And finally, I’d like to acknowledge what an active and engaging year 2011 has been. I also take this opportunity to thank my fellow Directors, our committee members, our Secretariat, and all of you who are an intrinsic part of AUCEA. I look forward to 2012 as we all continue to build AUCEA and University-Community Engagement scholarship and practice within and beyond Australian higher education.

Professor Peter Creamer
Chair, AUCEA

At the November Board meeting the Directors determined that all staff members of Member Universities will be able to access resources and member discounts offered for AUCEA conferences, workshops and other activities.

That’s right we have recently introduced a Member News link on the front page of the AUCEA Website and we invite and encourage you to contribute information about what’s happening with University-Community Engagement within and beyond your institution.

AUCEA is committed to developing a range of tools and resources to facilitate and support the growth a of culture-of-engagement in Australian higher education. A Tracking and Measuring Engagement (TaME) workshop was held at Southern Cross University (Gold Coast campus) in October 2011. The workshop attracted 30 participants from 14 universities, 21 on location and 9 via videoconference, teleconference or Elluminate link.


Professor Barbara Holland’s excellent contribution via Elluminate added significantly to the workshop and her power point presentation is now available on the AUCEA website. Barbara referred to importance of allowing for institutional context when developing a TaME scheme, and she also emphasised the need to ask the following questions:

1. Why track and measure engagement?
2. What are we tracking and measuring?
3. What are we going to do with the information?

Apart from the University of Western Sydney Tracking and Improving Community Engagement (TICE) system and the recently developed E-DNA system at Central Queensland University, none of the other universities represented have TaME systems in place. This lack of TaME systems clearly provides AUCEA with an opportunity to develop a tool that our members could utilise.


There was broad support for AUCEA to take a much stronger leadership role in this area, and workshop participants identified three areas for AUCEA to pursue:

1. Develop a TaME system
2. Develop best practice
3. Provide advocacy:

Workshop participants do not expect AUCEA “to do it all”, and they identified areas they need to address within their own universities, including:

1. Discussions with Academic Standards Framework team to develop Community Engagement indicators;
2. Discussion with Engagement Task Group to inform ranking of activities as a starting point; and to
3. Digest material and identify potential application.

We encourage you to do likewise. AUCEA is currently developing a White Paper, including a TaME framework with input from workshop participants The paper will be available for distribution to our members in April 2012. For further information please contact Dr Jan Strom at jan.strom@scu.edu.au.

AUCEA is proud of our long-running Visiting Scholar and Experts programme. This is a Member Only programme and over the years it has introduced a diverse array of engagement perspectives from international academics, prac-ademics and professionals to academic and non-academic staff and community members across Australia.


Six of our member institutions (Central Queensland University, Queensland University of Technology, University of Newcastle, La Trobe University, Victoria University and Swinburne University of Technology) will be hosting our next Visiting Scholar – Associate Professor Trae Stewart in March 2012. Trae is a Service Learning specialist and he is currently the Associate Professor, Education and Community Leadership and Co-Director, International Center for Educational Leadership and Social Change at Texas State University.

Our next conference will be held 9-11 July 2012 at the Gardens Point campus of the Queensland University of Technology campus in Brisbane. The Call for Proposals will be distributed next week and we encourage prospective presenters to answer the call. Proposals are due to be submitted by 31 January 2012.


We’ve already had enquiries from people wishing to register, so conference registrations will open on Monday 12 December 2011 at www.auceaconference.org.au.


The Student Showcase poster exhibition and presentation was very well received at our 2011 conference and we hope it will be even bigger and better in 2012. More information about this will be distributed early in the new year.


For further information about any of these items please contact our Executive Officer Dr Jan Strom on (02) 6659.3900 or at jan.strom@scu.edu.au.