From the Vice-Chancellor

The University of Melbourne has a long tradition of fostering female leaders.

In 1883, Miss Bella Guérin became the first Australian woman to graduate in an Australian university: our University. Four years later, women were admitted to the medical school.

We have come a long way since then.

Prime Minister and alumna Julia Gillard is one of many successful women who have graduated and gone on to make great contributions in every sphere of Australian society.

Celebrated authors Helen Garner and Germaine Greer, High Court Justice Susan Crennan and the first Australian Nobel Laureate, Professor Elizabeth Blackburn, are all graduates of this University.

Members of our community including former Chancellor Ms Fay Marles and leading Australian astrophysicist Professor Rachel Webster were recognised for their contributions to society in the 2010 Victorian Honour Roll of Women, which celebrates and publicly recognises the achievements of remarkable women.

Senior staff including Dean of the Faculty of Business and Economics and 2008 Telstra Business Woman of the Year Professor Margaret Abernethy and Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Global Engagement) Professor Susan Elliott provide powerful role models for our students and our professional and academic staff.

But there is still a way to go. There were 127 years between the graduation of our first woman student and Prime Minister Gillard’s ascendancy.

The University continues to foster women leaders in its student and staff community through its teaching, learning, research and knowledge transfer activities.

The Academic Women in Leadership program facilitates the increased participation of academic women in high-level academic appointments and in key policy and decision-making bodies at the University.

The Association of Women on Campus (AWCUM) promotes and maintains a strong support network for all women employed by the University of Melbourne, both academic and professional, by providing high-quality seminars and workshops to improve and enhance their professional skills.

The work of internal groups, including the Staff Equity Advisory Group, the Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace (EOWW) committee, and mentoring programs for women staff members also make important contributions to developing our women leaders.

And the University is focusing its formidable research strength on women and leadership. A team of researchers from the Department of Historical Studies recently received funding from the Australian Research Council to examine women and leadership in Australia.

The project, ‘Women and leadership in a century of Australian democracy’, will promote understanding of the nature and extent of women’s leadership. The principal investigators of the project are leading Professors in the department – both women.

Underpinning the many activities the University undertakes to foster the next generation of women leaders is this fact: all our students, including the 56 per cent who are women, receive a world-class educational experience which equips them with the skills and knowledge to become leaders in their fields, whether as a Nobel Laureate, sports star, or Prime Minister.

It will not be another 127 years before we see more women in the highest echelons of leadership in Australia.

John Dewar
Acting Vice-Chancellor