Honorary Life Membership

Sonia has made a significant and sustained strategic contribution at both national and international levels to advancing WIL practice, research and scholarship.

As one of the co-founders of ACEN in 2006, Judie’s visionary leadership in collaboratively shaping the association has informed its direction and significantly impacted quality WIL research, scholarly WIL practice, capability building for WIL practitioners and enhancing industry engagement, both nationally and internationally. Judie was on the national ACEN board from 2006-2009, chaired the WACE/ACEN conference committee in 2008 and was ACEN’s President from 2009 – 2018.

During this time Judie was responsible for leading ACEN with a membership of 2,500 professional and academic staff from 38 Australian universities. Judie’s proactive national and international advocacy around WIL included the development of the Australian National WIL Strategy with peak industry bodies and Universities Australia, representing ACEN on a range of national policy consultations, chairing the Australian Technology Network’s (ATN) Employability and WIL Working party and developing submissions to the Australian Government on range of WIL related policy areas.

Judie has represented Australia on the WACE board since 2017 and chairs the WACE Governance, and National Associations committees and is the Vice Chair of Partnerships and Programmes committee. In 2015 Judie was awarded the Dr Constantine Papadarkis Leadership Award for Excellence in Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Commitment to Co-operative Education and Work Integrated Learning.

Judie has lead numerous national WIL projects including: the WIL to Work Project (International students and WIL) Australian International Education: Enabling Growth and Innovation project fund, Department of Education, Skills and Employment, 2020 and the Expanding Work Integrated Learning (WIL) possibilities: enhancing student employability through innovative WIL models, ATN Excellence in Learning and Teaching Project 2017.

Associate Professor Judith Smith’s contribution to ACEN has been instrumental in the national and global profile of the organisation. Judith was on the National Board of the Australian Collaborative Education Network (ACEN) from 2013 to 2019, driving many ACEN initiatives, supporting members of the Queensland Chapter of ACEN, and encouraging and building capacity in fellow WIL practitioners.

Judith has driven several strategic initiatives for ACEN focussed on quality WIL outcomes for students and enhancing staff capacity in implementing WIL pedagogy.

Through her tenure as Director on the ACEN Board, Judith led projects of national and international significance. She Chaired the Research and Impact Committee of ACEN from 2013 to 2019, led the biennial World Association of Cooperative Education (WACE) Research Symposium, and facilitated the ACEN Conference Research Symposium in 2014, 2016 and 2018.  In addition, Judith was conference convenor for a very successful ACEN conference held in Brisbane in 2018.

The 2018 ACEN Life Member was awarded to Professor Stephen Billett at the 2018 Conference in recognition of his contributions to research and scholarship around work, learning and higher education that have transformed the position of work-based and work-integrated learning within the discourse of higher education.

The history of his work presents a journey of transformation of the position of work and learning, with a movement away from considering this nexus as solely in the context of vocational education and training, to now being considered as a central element of university and higher education.

He has been recognised through an ARC Future Fellowship, ALTC National Teaching Fellowship, and most recently an OLT Innovation and Development grant, each of which he has used to advance understanding and pedagogic practices associated with work and learning.

His work has been referenced and cited extensively across the papers presented at ACEN conferences, emphasising the impact that his research has had in shaping, and re-shaping, thinking and practice in work- integrated learning.