This week, we take a look at the wonderful staff from the Macquarie Business School.

Research

Professor Deborah Schofield
Excellence in Research: Five Future-shaping Research Priorities

In 2017, Professor Schofield led the establishment of the Centre for Economic Impacts of Genomic Medicine. The Centre aims to provide internationally leading research on the potential of genomics and similarly ground-breaking innovations to improve human health and, as a result, have had significant impact on the economy and Australian community.

“The new research program and Centre were established because there is currently little research on the significant potential for genomics to not only transform medicine and the health system, but also to improve the social and economic prospects of families, and thereby deliver on some of the most compelling and complex policy objectives – including fiscal sustainability – of government,” Deborah says.

The study provides whole genome sequencing for diagnosis of patients and to assess currently unknown health and social costs of familial intellectual disability.

“A diagnosis facilitates targeted treatment and avoidance of ineffective treatment – some of which may have serious adverse consequences – and accurate advice for recurrence risk, which can result in families no longer having the condition in future generations,” she says.

Professor Chris Patel
Excellence in Higher Degree Research Supervisor of the Year Award

Professor Patel is an internationally recognised academic in the field of International Accounting and provides research leadership at Macquarie.

Over the past 11 years, Chris has successfully supervised 13 PhD students to completion and these students have gone on to have their own distinguished careers, both in the academic world and in making valuable contributions to society.

“My supervision has contributed to developing quality research at Macquarie University, resulting in publications and awards, as well as the engagement of students and graduates in the research community,” he says.

“Together with the staff who completed their PhD under my supervision, we are recognised as pioneers and leaders in International Accounting research. My profile has attracted quality students to my research program and contributed to Macquarie’s global reputation.

“My objective is to collaborate with my colleagues to build a dedicated team to accelerate world-leading research performance, and to provide internationally aligned degrees with global relevance.”

Learning and Teaching

Dr Paul Crosby
Vice-Chancellor’s Learning and Teaching Student Nominated Award

As the unit convenor of ECON381 – Department of Economics PACE and Capstone unit – Dr Crosby designed and implemented a series of lectures and assessment tasks that equip students with an array of tools for their future careers. These tools demonstrate the versatility of economics, allowing students to apply their knowledge of the discipline to an array of contemporary issues.

“My goal is to ensure students complete their Macquarie economics journey with an experience that both empowers and inspires,” he says.

Dr LayPeng Tan
Vice-Chancellor’s Learning and Teaching Student Nominated Award

Dr Tan believes building relationships with students is about meeting them where they are, attempting to understand them, and developing connections with them.

“‘Teach from the heart, for the heart summarises what teaching is for me,” she says.

“My role as a lecturer is beyond imparting knowledge; I am an enabler of student success. I help students to develop their full potential and capabilities so they can achieve their goals within, and beyond, the classroom.”

LayPeng also advocates for safe-to-fail learning environments and believes they are particularly important to international students and those at risk.

Dr Frances Chang
Vice-Chancellor’s Learning and Teaching Sessional Staff Award

Dr Chang’s teaching philosophy focuses on experiential approaches to create positive learning environments.

“Our students come from diverse cultural backgrounds and they learn in different ways,” Frances says.

“I am always observing the different ways students learn and I ask myself ‘can I explain this better?’ ‘Is there a better analogy to highlight my explanation?’ and ‘Are there students requiring one-on-one attention?’”

Frances works hard to engage her students in learning and never takes them for granted.

“I include competitive strands in my teaching, for example hosting in-class games such as venture funds pitch presentations. I have found that students love this, and they work very hard to be the winning team!”

Dr Chong It Tan
Vice-Chancellor’s Learning and Teaching Early Career Award

Driven by the Learning for the Future framework that envisions the creation of a connected learning community, Dr Tan’s teaching promotes student engagement through various activities in the classroom.

“In my opinion, creating engaging learning environments requires passionate enthusiasm and being approachable,” Chong It says.

“Excellent student learning outcomes start with planning and development. My teaching approach is deeply influenced by the motto ‘I want to teach a unit that I would want to take myself’.

“Ever since I embarked on my teaching journey five years ago, the most common feedback I receive are words like passionate, enthusiastic, approachable, engaging, interactive and even humorous. Above all, I think the word ‘care’ best epitomises my attitude towards striving to provide the best possible learning experience for students.”

Dr Prashan Shayanka Mendis Karunaratne
Vice-Chancellor’s Award for Teaching Excellence
Vice-Chancellor’s Educational Leader Award

Dr Karunaratne has taught at Macquarie for over 16 years in Foundation, Diploma, Undergraduate, Postgraduate, and Massive Open Online Course units across various fields including Economics, Econometrics, Quantitative Methods, Business Forecasting and Microsoft Excel.

“Students learn best when they are inspired to learn ­– the ‘why’; and when they are equipped to learn ­– the ‘how’,” he says.

Prashan has facilitated seven workshops for Macquarie academics, including the inaugural Macquarie University International College (MUIC) Learning and Teaching Festival in 2019 where he was the plenary speaker on ‘Engage, Equip, Empower – the ‘Why’ and the ‘How’ of Learning and Teaching’.

“I am also heavily involved in the University’s Widening Participation program LEAP (Learning, Education, Aspiration, Participation),” he says. “I believe in empowering students from disadvantaged backgrounds such as refugees and asylum-seekers, Indigenous Australians, as well as students in regional and remote Australia and I have participated in biannual LEAP campus events since 2015.”

Additionally, Prashan has successfully secured a 2019 Widening Participation grant for $15,000 where he will assist in creating a program to reach equity schools, cultivating aspirations for university and fostering a connected learning community.

Dr Mauricio Marrone
Vice-Chancellor’s Award for Learning Innovation

Dr Marrone believes business students are increasingly presented with business scenarios, such as case studies, in an attempt to offer authentic learning opportunities while developing graduate skills. He explains that while case studies can stimulate class discussion as part of a learning activity or assessment, students mostly discuss pre-defined organisations that they can hardly relate to.

“Students have no vested interest in how their decisions and theoretical understanding impacts companies as they do not control how they operate,” he says.

To combat this, Mauricio has created a session-long experiential activity where students create their own case study. “I want my students to deeply engage with business issues, practice decision-making, and understand the immediate impact of their decisions, as well as develop skills transferable to any business context like critical thinking, problem-solving, and communication skills.”

Celebrate with your colleagues

Don’t forget to register your attendance for the event today!

The Academic Staff Awards will be held on Monday 18 November from 3pm to 5.30pm in the Graduation Hall (14 Sir Christopher Ondaatje Avenue).

While here at Macquarie University, teaching taxation and commercial law at both undergraduate and postgraduate level, Catriona has also been involved in writing learning materials for Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand and the Taxation Institute as well at coordinating and developing Macquarie University’s close relationship with the accounting profession.

(1) In a nutshell, my job is to…
My role as Associate Dean (Postgraduate), involves ‘looking after’ postgraduate courses offered by Macquarie Business School and, as Chair of the Academic Quality and Standards Committee (ASQC), facilitating discussions and decisions on academic matters relating to Macquarie University courses.

(2) The question I hear most often in my work is…
Are you available to attend a meeting?

 (3) This year I want to…
Ensure the 2020 Macquarie Business School curriculum changes are positively received by students. In relation to my role as Chair of ASQC, to ensure that shared governance with Faculty Boards rolls out successfully.

(4) The bravest thing I’ve done is…
Completing a number of laps around a race track while my husband was at the wheel!

(5) A place that’s special to me is…
My home and especially the garden.

(6) My mother/father always told me…
To eat with my mouth closed and walk with my shoulders back.

(7) My guilty pleasure is…
Too easy… chocolate and wine.

(8) I’m scared of…
Birds in my back yard/front yard that form nests in Spring and attack me when I step outside. I scream but no one comes running!

(9) My hidden talent is…
In my opinion I have a hidden talent as a singer. I actually made two records with Lane Cove Primary School Choir.

 (10) A moment I’ll always remember is…
Oh so many moments but I will always remember the birth of my two sons.

In honour of Gender Equity Week we asked Professor Magnani why there continues to be relatively few female academics in economics?

Professor Magnani: “There’s something in common between the toxic environments reported by many women working in economics, and the decline in interest in economics degrees, as discussed by Dr Jacqui Dwyer at her speech at the RBA last May.

“To some extent it’s grounded on a biased perception of individual merit and scholarly quality. Economics as a discipline that is generally slow in responding to societal challenges, reluctant to reflect the diversity of positions with respect to these societal challenges, and dogmatic with respect to what constitutes “serious economics”.

10 questions

1) The thing I find most rewarding in my role is…
Creating a sense of a common goal.

2) This year I want to…
Sit back and relax… (just kidding!)

3) The bravest thing I’ve done is…
Leave the known for the unknown. I’ve done it more than once!

4) My mother/father always told me…
“I buoni vincono sempre… alla fine.” (The good always wins…. in the end)

5) My guilty pleasure is…
Sneaking a read of the Italian paper La Repubblica during Executive Group meetings.

6) A place that’s special to me is…
La Perouse, where I live – a place of conflictual histories, potent nature and personal memories.

7) I’m scared of…
Heartless people.

8) My hidden talent is…
House cleaning.

9) Something I’ve never done but wanted to try is…
Travel across a desert.

10) A moment I’ll always remember is…

When my then-young kids settled (without fights) for an ordinary tabby kitten, when more beautiful ones were available. They made a great choice ­– our beautiful cat Tigre.

Macquarie students certainly agree, with Tas winning the Faculty of Business and Economics Student-Led Teaching Award for 2018. We sat down with Tas to find out her secrets for keeping a room full of students captivated every week, and why making the move to teaching was one of the best things she ever did.

TW: Firstly, congratulations on the award – how does it feel to be recognised by your students in this way?
I haven’t been able to stop smiling about it. Of course, my Admin Manager and Head of Department tell me I do a good job, and that means a lot to me. But it’s something particularly special when my students say ‘she’s good’ ­– that’s when I know I’ve made a difference.

It’s like when soldiers get purple hearts. When it’s from your team – the people that have seen you on the front line ­– it means so much more.

You were a trader on the London Metal Exchange. What made you decide to be a teacher?
Trading was a very stressful environment. I didn’t like the person I was becoming ­­– I was getting very arrogant. I remember quitting and my friends saying “Thank God!”.

I moved into academia by chance when I was doing my MBA and the Dean asked me if I’d like to take a couple of his classes. At first I thought, “Teaching? No, I can’t do that.” But I realised that standing in front of a classroom satisfied two things: firstly, my need for attention ­– I’ve always been a drama queen – but there is also this absolute sense of satisfaction when a student comes up to you and says “Oh! That makes so much sense now!”.

How would you describe your approach to teaching?
Understand what the students go through, where they’re coming from, and what it’s going to take to get each student where they need to be. The first thing I tell students is “if I don’t see the performance from you that I know you’re capable of, I will yell at you.”

I’m very real with my students – extremely real. I tell them, “guys, let’s not waste our time here. How much are you spending on this unit – $4200? If you’ve got $4200 to waste, let’s not do it here – let’s go shopping!”

I’m also very upfront in telling them I have a very limited repertoire of jokes. It gives them more incentive to pass – they don’t want to be hearing the same jokes next semester!

Why do you think your students think so highly of you?
I make it a big priority to get to know each of my students personally – it’s something I feel very passionate about. If the students know my name, I need to know theirs. If I see a student on campus, I call them by their name. If they miss a class, I make sure they know I’ve noticed.

I think students appreciate that more than anything else. Yes, I know the content, I know how to teach. But it’s that commitment that says I care. And they know that I expect them to damn well care too.

What role do you think you play in your students’ success?
You have to see yourself as a personal coach, in a way. You have to be clear that you’re there to help them. You’ve got to coach them through panic, through self-doubt.

I’ve seen the kind of work these students put in – often their families, friends and colleagues don’t understand the kind of pressure they’re under.  I’ve got students who are working all night and then they’re coming to class in the morning and still putting the work in. If they’re showing me that kind of commitment, I cannot but show them the same commitment in return.

How do you engage your students in class? How important is storytelling, for example?
I read somewhere that teaching is 10 per cent knowledge and 90 per cent theatre. You’ve got to be an artist, you’ve got to modulate. My classes are like a play in themselves ­– I scream, I shout, I go soft. You’ve got students in there for three hours – you can’t let them get bored.

The best feedback I can get is that I don’t teach from the slides. It shows you know your content inside-out. And that comes from experience, from corporate experience, from real life experience. Storytelling is only possible if you’ve got stories to tell.

Do you think effective classroom teaching can be learned?
You can be an absolutely brilliant academic or researcher but that doesn’t necessarily make you a good teacher. It’s a whole different skillset. Unless you can articulate, you won’t be effective in front of a classroom. I will always refer to myself as a teacher. I need to be at the frontline and of course, my future research will help enhance that!

The only negative feedback I tend to get is that I can go too fast – sometimes I’m like a runaway steam train. My passion for my subject can also be my undoing!

Do you use digital technologies as part of your teaching arsenal?
No, it’s just me. I’m lucky that the subject I teach is very conducive to the way I teach. If I had to teach digital arts or media, I’d be lost ­­­– I’m just not that tech-savvy. The teachers that do that are brilliant! Again, it’s all about different skill-sets.

What part of your job gives you the most satisfaction?
It’s the email or handwritten note at the end of semester saying “thank you, I couldn’t have done it without you”. I know it sounds cheesy, but the effect is unbelievable. It’s instant gratification and you know that you’ve truly made a difference.

We don’t forget good teachers. I still remember my fourth-grade teacher, and my old classmates and I still talk about how brilliant she was. I’d love to be talked about like that, years and years down the track. It would be great to walk down the street in 20 years time and have someone stop me and tell their child “See, this is the teacher I was telling you about!”.

Do you think you’ll continue teaching in the long term?
Yes. This is what I do. I’ll do it as long as I have a voice. I’ve got trader friends who say “What are you doing, Tas?” – they can’t understand why I’d give up a lucrative trading career for teaching.

Trading nourished the arrogance in me, and I wouldn’t be a good teacher without having had that experience. But teaching nourishes every part of me. 

Join the conversation about the role we all play in student success. Register for the All Staff Town Hall on Monday 12 November, as the University launches its Student Success Strategic Framework.

The Vice-Chancellor’s Learning and Teaching Awards will be held on 31 October. We’ll be celebrating some of these outstanding teachers in This Week over the coming weeks.

The new Global MBA has been designed to equip learners with the capabilities they’ll need to compete in the rapidly growing global workforce, in an age when AI is expected to automate half of the activities that people are paid to do in the global economy.

“The Global MBA is aimed at professionals who want to future-proof and accelerate their careers, wherever they’re located in the world,” explains Global MBA Academic Program Director, Associate Professor Lan Snell.

“Accordingly, we’ve structured the degree around six future-focused capabilities that’ll enable learners to stand out in an increasingly competitive job market – namely leading, strategising, analysing, influencing, adapting and problem solving.”

Whereas Macquarie’s highly regarded face-to-face MGSM MBA is delivered at our main campus, our CBD campus and in Hong Kong, the Global MBA is being delivered entirely online through the Coursera platform. Coursera is the world’s largest online learning platform and the largest Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) provider in the world, with more than 33 million enrolled learners.

Global MBA Program Director (Design and Experience) Dr Yvonne Breyer is no stranger to the Coursera platform, having previously led the development of the ‘Excel Skills for Business’ specialisation. Yvonne received the Coursera Outstanding Educator Award for Student Transformation on the back of exceptional learner feedback on the specialisation, its global reach and impact.

Yvonne leads a learning design and experience team, including senior learning designers, media producers and student experience designers, which have been working towards an equally laudable learning experience for the Global MBA.

“The announcement of this degree is the culmination of months of hard work on degree design and development by the whole Global MBA team and colleagues across the Faculty of Business and Economics,” says Yvonne.

“The result of this is an innovative and transformative learner experience for Global MBA students, allowing them to collaborate with an audience of global learners using the latest digital tools.”

Find out more
Join Lan and Yvonne for a staff-only webinar to find out more about the program, flexible study options, entry requirements and application deadlines. If you can’t attend the live webinar, you can still sign up to receive an emailed recording after the live session takes place.

“You women are taking all our jobs.”

This comment was delivered to me by a senior corporate male a few years ago. I was interviewing him as part of a research project on gender equity at senior levels of the public, private and government sectors around Australia.

When I walked into the room to find the man’s back to me – I thought he was on the phone. But when he failed to turn around to face me, I was stunned to realise this was a deliberate comment on the subject of my research. After conducting the first half of the interview with the man refusing to look at me, I saw no point in continuing and left the room. I found that an unforgettable experience.

Fast forward to 2018, and it’s important to examine how far we have come in regards to gender equity in the workplace. In terms of women on boards, I do believe we have come some way.

This is despite recent ructions following the dismissal of AMP’s Catherine Brenner, and recriminations from the business community such as Kevin McCann, who steers the boards of Macquarie and Origin Energy, and retail king Gerry Harvey disputing women on boards and quotas.

Note that Brenner left AMP because of the company’s irregularities and not because of any perceived incompetency or, indeed, because she is a woman.

The question to ask is have we created new opportunities to increase board diversity, or has the progress stalled when it comes to women on boards?

Steady increases between 2010 and 2016
The process of change in Australia began with the revision of the Corporate Governance Guidelines of the peak regulator, the ASX, in 2010.

From 1 January 2011, the guidelines required all companies listed on the ASX to provide details in their annual reports of the number of women on their boards, in senior management roles and across the organisation; and also, to introduce gender targets and report on their effectiveness.

This was heralded as a turning point in the Australian corporate regulatory environment, as noted in my joint research with Karen Handley and Sue Wright ‘The Same or Different: How Women have become included in corporate leadership in Australia’.

And certainly, there has been a significant increase in the number of women appointed to the boards of the ASX 200 listed companies.

The proportion of women on boards in Australia more than doubled between 2010 and 2016. In June 2016, the percentage of women on ASX 200 boards was 23.4%, demonstrating a steady increase from 10.70% in 2010 when the new corporate guidelines were implemented.

The Australian Institute of Company Directors (AICD) also set a target of 30% female board membership by the end of 2018.

WA mining company still lagging behind
Recent reports however, suggest this target is unlikely to be met because not all ASX companies are compliant.

The top 50 ASX listed companies are aware of their responsibilities and their need to reflect the community in terms of sustainability and 50/50 appointments of men and women. It’s the bottom 1500 ASX companies, particularly WA mining companies, that have no women on boards.

In effect, it’s only the high-profile companies where equality is being tracked. Despite gains made to date, women remain underrepresented on boards and in executive leadership roles. Thus, the pipeline remains leaky and estimations of corporate gender parity in OECD countries exceeds 80 years.

Likewise, the focus on board composition progress appears to have slowed or stalled in a number of countries that have to date been active in the promotion and monitoring of boards composition.

The 2017 report by Egon Zehnder examining board data from more than 1400 companies showed progress had slowed. Whilst there were some gains in Western Europe, the situation remained static in the US and, in 11 of the countries studied, half or more of the boards had no women appointees at all.

Progress in the UK has been tracked through the annual reporting of board composition– notably the Women on Boards FTSE, 100 reports in the UK, Catalyst Global reports and the profile of boards in the US and Canada. The Egon Zehnder report also noted that board appointments globally remained at an average of three male appointees for every female appointed to a board.

Meanwhile, closer to home, the Australian Institute of Company Directors tracks women’s appointments to listed boards.

The Same or Different research confirms that the boardroom is a gendered space where the traditional norms of masculinity prevail due to the high degree of similarity of backgrounds of the male and female appointees.

Quotas versus experience
In this research, we find that the public discourse of the profiles and career pathways taken by new female appointees to the boards of ASX 200 companies in 2013 and 2014 were not very different from those of new male appointees.

Men face a very competitive process to be appointed to boards, and their achievements should not be overlooked when there is so much focus on the women.

We also find that novelty surrounding female appointments evident in the public discourse reflects the challenges of affecting change in this bastion of male domination.

While women are not as strongly associated with corporate leadership as the men, and their careers are not as predictable to the outside observer, what is discussed is a remarkable depth of experience and contributions across many fields.

This is clearly the case with former AMP Chair Catherine Brenner. She was appointed because of her depth and breadth of experience, not to fulfil a quota.

Our research concludes that while the profiles and pathways for women do not differ greatly from those of new male appointees, the board room is still a gendered space where women are negotiating even without their numbers reaching the elusive 30% tipping point.

They are appointed to boards because of their likeness to their male counterparts in terms of human capital.

In a fascinating twist however, both board chairs and women appointees refer to their gender being a reason for their appointment.

Macquarie staff now have exclusive access to an award-winning series of Excel skill-building courses on Coursera – one of the largest online learning platforms in the world.

Developed by a team led by Dr Yvonne Breyer in the Faculty of Business and Economics, the Excel Skills for Business Specialisation won Coursera’s ‘Outstanding Educator Award for transformation’ earlier this year. The courses are rated 4.8 out of 5 on average by the 40,000 users who have enrolled in the Specialisation since launch.

Dr Breyer says it’s been amazing to hear how users from around the world are benefitting from the courses.

“Our learners are telling us that by filling the gap in their Excel knowledge, they’ve boosted confidence in their work skills, improved their performance in job interviews and positively improved their day-to-day working life,” she says. “Most learners come away from the courses telling us ‘I should’ve taken this course a long time ago!’”

Four courses –  from beginner to advanced level – are available for staff to complete, with each course requiring approximately 24 hours of flexible, online study. Macquarie staff have exclusive, free access to the courses and will receive a certificate on completion which can be highlighted on their CV or LinkedIn.

Visit the webpage for information on how to enrol in Excel Skills for Business as a Macquarie staff member.

Associate Professors Chris Baumann and Hume Winzar, of the Faculty of Business and Economics, together with Professor Tony Fang at the Stockholm Business School, were recently invited to edit special edition of the journal Cross Cultural and Strategic Management, which focused on East Asian wisdom and its impact on business culture and performance.

Largely derived from the teachings of Confucius (551 B.C. to 479 B.C.) and other elements of ancient Chinese philosophy, much of East Asian wisdom is focused on the successful combination of seemingly opposing forces (for example, the concept of Yin and Yang).

While there is growing recognition that the West can learn from this wisdom, it is only relatively recently that researchers in business disciplines have attempted to measure its impact – in particular, how it influences everyday human behaviour such as negotiation style, work ethic and performance.

“Our understanding of how Confucian culture drives performance has been speculative at best,” says Baumann, who is also a Visiting Professor at Seoul National University. “Generally speaking, culture does affect behaviour, but whether Confucian culture drives specific attitude and behaviour such as work ethic was still ambiguous.”

In their own paper Confucianism: measurement and association with workforce performance Baumann and Winzar worked with PhD student Doris Viengkham to test the association between three aspects of Confucianism and a series of work-related behaviours.

They concluded that the pedagogical approach of Confucian East Asia, with its emphasis on education and strict discipline, are shown to have a spill-over effect into how individuals perform in the workplace.

The study was unique in its multi-faceted approach to Confucianism, with previous studies assuming a relatively homogenous culture across East Asian countries. Baumann and his colleagues explored Confucianism in China, South Korea and Taiwan, or the ‘Confucian Orbit’.

“We identified at least five ‘types’ of workforce in East Asia, whose prioritisation of Confucian values are meaningfully different”, Baumann says. “It really highlights the need to move beyond a ‘one size fits all’ approach to managing workforce diversity, especially in culturally diverse places like Australia, including our own university.”

How does your cultural background influence the way you work? Tell us in the comments.

By taking part in solving a real-world problem in the two-day Business Innovation Challenge, a group of high-performing Year 10 students experienced the dynamics of what it is like working competitively, in a team, and at the Macquarie University Incubator, in front of the user company.

For two days last week, on 30 November and 1 December, 41 students from a number of high schools in the Sydney area were welcomed by the Faculty of Business and Economics (FBE) to the Macquarie University Incubator to learn how to apply innovative thinking to business problems.

The problem presented to the students was about the allocation of parking spots and, specifically, the challenges faced when private cars were taking up carshare spaces. Students were granted a budget of $1000 to factor into their solutions.

With an introduction to the challenge by Jonathan Englert and Joshua Brydges from GoGet, sponsors of the event, students were then coached through the problem-solving process by Dr Robert Kay and Dr Chris Goldspink from Incept Labs, also external partners.

Taking to the challenge with much enthusiasm, the students considered several factors – including social, technological, environmental, economic, and political – before discussing potential ideas and evaluating them against stakeholder roles, financial impact and business needs. They also discussed the feasibility of their ideas with the GoGet team members.

The potential solutions students presented included: bollards and parking locks, social media campaigns, integrated alarm systems and damage detection, as well as changing social behaviour, culture and community awareness building. Prizes were awarded for the best ideas, best pitch presentation and best group work, while stand-out individuals who demonstrated leadership skills were given a round of applause.

The exercise not only gave students a taste of what it would be like to study here at Macquarie University but showed them that collaboration is increasingly important in the workplace, as well as how this kind of learning offers a vital experience for young students who will need to stay relevant in a landscape being quickly redefined by technological advances.

The Business Innovation Challenge is the first of its kind delivered by FBE and is the result of a business collaboration between a  business partner, across teams within the University, including Macquarie International, Corporate Engagement, Future Students and the Events Team. For more information please visit the faculty website.

“These students – many of whom come from a background of disadvantage, are women caring and providing for others, or are self-funded, international students paying full fees without family, financial or practical support – are on our mind all the time,” says Professor Stephen Brammer.

According to Professor Brammer, the students in his faculty are dedicated, innovative and hard at work solving global issues “like strengthening economic productivity, monitoring risk and regulation, and bringing the human element to financial structures and sustainability”. However, he says some are definitely suffering from a lack of scholarships available for this period of their education, “and it is having a profound effect on their ability to stay the course”.

For example, one of the Faculty’s international students is a mother of two studying for her Master of Research; she was struggling. Her supervisor recognised her great potential but he was pained to realise that she was at risk of not completing her course due to financial hardship.

“Driven by compassion, he provided the student with funds from his personal savings, and helped her gain academic employment,” says Professor Brammer.

Motivated by ensuring that the quality of her thesis wouldn’t be hampered, the supervisor’s reward was knowing he had relieved the load for someone with great promise. Professor Brammer says he simply could not stand by and watch her give up.

“His kind, gracious, anonymous donation meant that this student could complete her studies, which she did with flying colours,” says Professor Brammer. “She has also been admitted to PhD studies under a scholarship.”

“But it takes more than one generous supervisor,” adds Professor Brammer. “To ensure others are helped, the Faculty of Business and Economics established the Young Researchers Support Fund.”

If you are in a position to help, you may wish to consider donating to the Young Researchers Support Fund.  Donations towards this fund will directly reduce the financial pressure and conflicting demands our higher degree researchers experience so they can finish what they came to Macquarie University to start.