VC delivers lecture at Mannix College
Monash Vice-Chancellor and President, Professor Margaret Gardner has delivered the 2015 Newman Public Lecture at Mannix College.
In front of an audience that included the Chancellor, Dr Alan Finkel and Vice-Chancellor of Melbourne University, Professor Glyn Davis (a former Newman lecturer), Professor Gardner spoke of the past and future of education in her presentation entitled “The Golden Years Return: How will we change Australian higher education?”
Professor Gardner said her lecture title was chosen to show that the idea of a past golden age for universities distracts us from understanding the challenges and imperatives facing each new generation of students.
“We should not let our own experience unduly colour our conception of what a university education should be,” Professor Gardner said.
This year’s lecture focused on how emerging technology and changes to classroom learning would transform the way future generations of students are educated.
“Changes in the way teaching and learning is being undertaken in the 21st century are on their way to providing a newly personalised, varied and exciting experience, which does deliver truly effective learning,” Professor Gardner said.
“We have all the elements to bring forth a golden age of learning and teaching in universities that combines the depth and quality we have always sought, with a dazzling variety and openness that we have never seen before.”
The lecture, named in honour of English Catholic theologian and educator, John Henry Newman was held last Wednesday night, 12 August at Mannix College, a residential college affiliated with Monash that is located opposite the Clayton campus.
Professor Gardner was presented with the Newman Public Lecture Medal and a rugby top in college colours with ‘Margaret’ embroidered on the back.
The lecture will be published by Mannix College and copies will be available on request at no charge from the College in the near future.