The global popularity of the students-as-partners (SaP) model in the higher education sector demonstrates that students, through their lived experiences, have valuable perspectives to contribute to shaping university curricular and co-curricular experiences. While there are numerous inherent benefits associated with facilitating SaP arrangements,…

Mid-career men and women professionals describe their pervasive sense of 'lateness' retraining in law. Against industry patterns of lawyers wishing to leave the profession, these individuals had chosen to assert or reassert a desire to become lawyers partway through existing careers. What cultural narratives mediate the process of making this…

There are many examples of the regulatory guardian standing at the entry gate of professional life. None have infiltrated so expansively into the education and entry of a profession as the Office of the Migration Agent Registration Authority (OMARA). Since 2006 the OMARA has dictated the course content requirements for the prescribed qualification…

Interdisciplinary education is gaining prominence in higher education, but little is known about the experiences and professional development needs of interdisciplinary educators. Through the lenses of self-reflection, peer review, and the educational literature, this paper uses a narrative enquiry approach to explore the lived experiences of two…

In 2017, the School of Law at the University of Wollongong commenced an experimental initiative through the introduction of a Law Student Pledge. It was designed as a symbolic statement to students that from the day they begin their law studies they become a member of the legal professional community. In this way, it invited First Year Students to…

This article considers the intersection between two major themes in university policy: the improvement of participation by rural and regional communities and the dimension of graduate employability. It argues that work-integrated learning has the potential to address both themes, but that the development of an apprenticeship model for prestige…

The theory of institutional isomorphism has been criticized for overemphasizing organizational convergence and neglecting organizational divergence. Drawing on a range of empirical data, this paper shows that multi-dimensional accounts of isomorphic change are not necessarily incompatible with accounts emphasizing divergence as a typical form of…

Research confirms law students and lawyers in the US, Australia and more recently in the UK are prone to symptoms related to stress and anxiety disproportionately to other professions. In response, the legal profession and legal academy in Australia and the UK have created Wellness Networks to encourage and facilitate research and disseminate…

Encouraging life-long learner skills and preparing students for a new style of lawyering in the 21st Century to meet changing needs requires approaching teaching in renewed ways. This paper describes the action reflection learning approach adopted when teaching a mediation law course in an Australian law school. The approach and outcomes are…

Australian higher education institutions have focused on attrition rates with increased vigour in light of the introduction of a new student success metric tied to attrition rates. Online programs have been of particular concern given persistently high attrition rates, being roughly double that of programs delivered either face-to-face or in…

Effectively addressing violations of human rights requires dealing with complex, multi-spatial problems involving actors at local, national and international levels. It also calls for a diverse range of inter-disciplinary skills. How can tertiary educators prepare students for such work? This study evaluates the coordinated implementation of human…

University law schools have been beset with a sense of schizophrenia ever since first established in the 19th century. They were unsure as to whether they were free to teach and research in the same way as the humanities or whether they were constrained by the presuppositions of legal practice. More recently, this tension has been overshadowed by…

The University of Southern Queensland's online study environment continues to grow with over 16,000 students studying online. Pre-Covid-19, online enrolments typically represent around 67% of all students studying at USQ. This article usefully analyses quantitative data in order to evaluate the effectiveness of the pilot of an online peer-assisted…

This article presents a work-based learning and research approach to professional postgraduate education specifically in the case of Higher Degree by Research (HDR) programs. It highlights a prototype of the Cohort-based Advisory Team (CAT) model as a useful strategy. The authors propose that a design thinking approach that empathises with the…

This mixed method study involved twenty students enrolled in three consecutive intakes of an Australian Bachelor of Laws program's introductory unit. Pioneering a multi-element blended design, the unit featured three key elements: summary videos, self-test online quizzes and interactive discussion boards. These elements were chosen based on…