After 30 years in teaching, Accounting PhD mum shares graduation stage with son
27 September 2023
Daniel Allen and Dr Ellinor Allen at their graduation.
Mum-of-five Dr Ellinor Allen’s path to her PhD is a story of passion and determination, which culminated in a landmark moment alongside her son Daniel.
With three decades of teaching experience at Monash Business School, Dr Allen’s career is also a testament to resilience and the pursuit of a dream.
A family first: Stepping into higher education
In 1993, Dr Allen began her journey at Monash as a sessional tutor while completing her honours degree, intending to pursue accounting as a full-time career.
As the first in her family to venture into higher education, she was navigating uncharted waters.
Sessional work gave her the flexibility she needed while raising her family of five, before taking the plunge into a full-time role in the Department of Accounting, with her husband stepping up as a stay-at-home dad.
This allowed her to fully embrace academia, and a few years later, she transitioned into an education-focused role, aligning her career with her passion for teaching.
However, the real game-changer came in 2014 when two Monash Business School mentors offered to supervise her PhD.
Making Accounting students more employable
"I'd worked at Monash all of my life and felt like we were letting the students down if not ensuring they were job-ready," Dr Allen said.
Her PhD project explores the evolving role of accounting professionals in today's world.
With a changing industry landscape requiring graduates to think critically and advise clients on strategies and decisions they face, rather than just preparing financial information, with many procedural tasks now outsourced or automated, her research explored why employers felt graduates were falling short in this department.
Dr Allen crafted a teaching and learning intervention by combining various research threads such as critical thinking, deep learning, pedagogical approaches, and skills development.
Her students tackled tasks that drew on their first-year accounting knowledge while progressing to second-year accounting, promoting a deep understanding of the foundational concepts crucial for critical thinking.
Dr Allen's findings shed light on a significant issue: many students struggled to recall what they'd learned in their first year due to rote memorisation.
This, in turn, hampered their ability to think critically later on, emphasising the importance of a solid foundational understanding of accounting.
Passion for teaching and learning
Throughout her extensive career as a lecturer at Monash, Dr Allen said her commitment to teaching had never wavered, after what started as an unexpected career shift has blossomed into a lifelong passion.
"Teaching provides me with a continuous reminder that every student in our class is an individual, bringing with them a unique personality, life experiences and way of learning," Dr Allan said.
An unforgettable graduation
On 26 September, Dr Allen proudly graduated alongside her second-eldest son Daniel, who now has a Bachelor of Finance. The rest of her family were in the audience.
She hopes she has set an example for her children.
"I hope...I'm a role model to them in terms of perseverance, determination and never giving up on something you set your mind to," she said.
"My children were between nine and 19 years old when I started the task, and are now 18-28!"
Three of her children have completed or are currently undertaking higher education.