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The Guardian
a day ago
- General
- The Guardian
‘Breaking down the walls': the long journey towards Indigenous inclusion at University of Melbourne
It took more than 100 years after universities were established in Australia for an Indigenous student to graduate. Margaret Williams-Weir, a Gumbaynggirr and Malera Bundjalung woman, completed a diploma in physical education at the University of Melbourne in 1959. Since Williams-Weir, more than 1,400 Indigenous students have graduated from the sandstone university, and a record 536 were enrolled in 2023. But that is still only 1.27% of students, compared with 3.8% of the general population who are Indigenous. The university has also failed to reach its targets for Indigenous staff. Amid efforts to improve Indigenous representation, the university has released the second volume of Dhoombak Goobgoowana – translated as 'truth-telling' in the Woi Wurrung language of the traditional owners of the land on which the university was built. The first volume, published last year, laid bare the dark side of the university's history, revealing how Nazi apologists, massacre perpetrators, grave robbers, racists and eugenicists had been celebrated as hugely influential heroes of academia. The second volume, Voice, does not shy away from the the university's troubled historical relationship with Indigenous people, but shifts its focus to stories of resilience, resistance and reform, which its editors hope will contribute to reconciliation. The deputy vice-chancellor (Indigenous) , Prof Barry Judd, says Voice is about 'who gets to speak, who gets heard, and what it takes to create space for Indigenous leadership in systems not built for us'. 'This volume documents progress, but also calls us to go further,' he says. 'It is both a record of progress and a foundation for ongoing cultural transformation.' The work was commissioned as part of the university's commitment to truth telling. Both volumes were submitted to the Yoorrook Justice Commission, the first formal truth-telling process into injustices experienced by Indigenous people in Victoria. Prof Marcia Langton, who co-wrote and edited the book, says the works of Indigenous staff and students to turn the university towards respect for Indigenous knowledge 'echo across history and continue to inspire'. When Langton was hired in 2000 to construct an undergraduate program in Australian Indigenous studies, she was the first Aboriginal professor at the university and among only a handful of full-time Indigenous academic staff. She says Dhoombak Goobgoowana would have been 'impossible to write' when her tenure began. 'There were no Indigenous studies programs at all,' she says. 'Today we are the only university in the world that has reckoned with its Indigenous history and its engagement with Indigenous people honestly and truthfully. 'Before we were able to do this, it was a matter of great shame to many Indigenous people that our university had this past and didn't acknowledge it.' Sign up: AU Breaking News email When Williams-Weir began at the university, campus racism was overt. In 1951, the book recounts, first year students were greeted at the university's official welcome by white students in blackface dressed as 'spear-waving 'aborigines''. Six years later, when a fundraising body for Indigenous tertiary education, Abschol, advertised it would sell buttons, a group of students hung an effigy of an Indigenous person from a tree outside Union House. An article published in the student newspaper Farrago in 1959 mocking Abschol's work said attempts to offer charity to Indigenous people produced an 'apathetic, disease-ridden, violent, metho-drinking community who have no other values than the satisfaction of their desires'. Abschol students' own efforts also demonstrated a limited connection to the Indigenous community at the university. Their float for the 1956 Moomba parade featured five white students who had blackened their skin and wore headdresses taken from communities in far north Queensland. This was the environment the university's first Aboriginal liaison officer, Destiny Deacon, entered when she began her role in 1975. She resigned a year later over 'intractable disagreements' about her autonomy and under-resourcing. Deacon went on to complete a bachelor of arts degree in 1979 and became a celebrated artist, broadcaster, academic and political activist, but during her tenure she came up against persistently racist ideas about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders. Launching the first Black Week of the Students Representative Council in 1974, Deacon lamented: 'Some of us think the dishonest acquisition of our land by the whites happened because we, at the time, had no concept of the white man's irrational notion of his divine right to plunder the lands and property of human beings whom he considers to be 'primitive', 'barbaric' or 'uncivilised',' she told the crowd. 'They conned us into believing that they were superior'. Langton says Deakin did an 'extraordinary job' supporting the students and 'breaking down the walls of exclusion' at the university. '[Her speech] represents the tipping point from the view of Aboriginal people as primitives, which had been the subject of so much pseudoscience at the university,' she says. 'Change really began to accelerate from the advocacy of a few enlightened individuals.' Despite the efforts of students such as Deakin, the university's colonial past remained evidenced in the names of buildings promoting eugenicists, and tucked behind closed doors. In 2002, a collection of more than 800 Indigenous remains was discovered by chance in a locked basement storeroom. The remains had been collected by Richard Berry, a professor of anatomy at the university in the early 1900s and prominent eugenicist. He was one of multiple academics who took remains from Indigenous communities as late as the 1950s. After amendments to the Victorian government's Relics Preservation Act in the 1980s, Gunditjmara elder Uncle Jim Berg arrived at the UoM with the legal injunction to repatriate the stolen items. The book recounts Berg's recollection that the then vice-chancellor, David Caro, met him in his office and shouted: 'Who in the hell do you think you are, taking on the University of Melbourne?' A collection of about 800 Indigenous remains, excavated from gravesites on the Murray River by George Murray Black, was returned. But despite the injunction explicitly including Berry's collection as well as Black's, it would sit in the Medical Building for another two decades, and even now families are waiting for their ancestors to be repatriated. A subsequent audit by the university found about two dozen Aboriginal remains and cultural artefacts, including the skull of a tribal leader stored alongside animal specimens and Aboriginal stone artefacts stored in a service duct. There were some academics who championed Indigenous knowledge, including Dr Leonhard Adam, Baldwin Spencer and Donald Thomson, whose collection consists of more than 10,000 Indigenous objects. This year, the university's Potter Museum unveiled the jestingly-titled exhibition 65,000 Years: A Short History of Australian Art, featuring more than 400 artworks and cultural objects from the university's collection, many of which had rarely been seen by the public, including segments of Thomson's collection. Co-curated by Langton, the exhibition confronts Australia's colonial history and the process of collection from Indigenous lands, as well as the belated acceptance of Aboriginal art into the fine art canon. Langton says academics such as Thomson were 'collecting vast amounts of Aboriginal cultural heritage, but after they retired or passed, those collections sat in storerooms and were rarely seen by the public … Our exhibition puts their collections in their historical context.' This, co-editor Dr James Waghorne says, is what a history of inclusion looks like: 'Imperfect, overdue and then often painfully slow, but marked by stories of courage and hope. 'Dhoombak Goobgoowana traces a series of beginnings,' he says. 'When academic leaders repudiated race science with growing insistence, when pioneering Indigenous students made the most of their chances, and their allies in student clubs and societies championed their cause. 'When the first staff broke through, and when the university established partnerships with Indigenous groups beyond its gates.'
CBC
24-07-2025
- Business
- CBC
Six Nations Polytechnic and Wilfrid Laurier University sign formal agreement
A new agreement between Six Nations Polytechnic (SNP) and Wilfrid Laurier University (WLU) aims to offer more educational options to Indigenous students and raise awareness of Indigenous culture for non-Indigenous students. The organizations have been working together for nearly 30 years, but on Monday they officially signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to bolster academic ties. Pending funding, the agreement will look to offer more educational options, especially for local Indigenous students. The collaboration also wants to raise awareness of Indigenous practices for non-Indigenous students. SNP has around 350 students, not all of whom are Indigenous. WLU has approximately 400 Indigenous students out of a total student population across campuses around 20,000. "I find that it's very welcoming to see … some institutions very much open to partnering as part of the way forward," said Rebecca Jamieson, the president and CEO of Six Nations Polytechnic. SNP has been offering programs since the early 1990s. It offers university-level Ogwehoweh languages courses as well as numerous skilled trades, college-level programs, and a high school level STEAM academy. Jamieson has been with the SNP since the very beginning and became president in 2009. She said the partnership with Laurier has been in place for so long the MOU is just a formality and standard protocol. "It has been a long-standing relationship and it's just deepening." She cited a recent partnership with Mohawk College which supported 40 nursing graduates. "[A] partnership is a way to get things done. Good partnerships … are lasting," she said. Whatever follows, Jamieson said, it will be looked at through a win-win lens for both institutions. The focus of SNP has been to meet the needs of the community, she said, and to benefit Indigenous students. Labour market considerations are a factor but Jamieson also emphasized that the student body of nearly 350 is not entirely Indigenous. "We have people from all backgrounds who study with us who want to learn in our environment. So I think as a way forward, it's an opportunity," Jamieson said. Darren Thomas, associate vice-president of Indigenous initiatives at Wilfrid Laurier University, said the agreement is a recognition of SNP's desire to grow and offer programs. "Our plan … over the next several years is to construct several agreements. So this MOU is an overarching agreement," Thomas said. He said this is going to be a lot of work within both institutions, local communities, the provincial government and others. "We're laying [the groundwork] out as if we had funding," he said. Thomas references the more than a dozen Métis councils and 18 First Nations in the region. He said Laurier is really trying to position itself to serve, not just students but also staff and the community in general. Both Jamieson and Thomas confirmed it may take a year to finalize the details of this partnership.
SBS Australia
11-07-2025
- General
- SBS Australia
Latest Insights form the Arora Education Foundations RISE Project
Australia's largest Indigenous-led education study shows targeted support significantly improves Indigenous education outcomes. The Aurora Education Foundation has released its latest insights from the RISE project - a five year initiative evaluating programs ranging from tutoring, in-person support, cultural camps, and connecting students with Elders.
BBC News
08-07-2025
- General
- BBC News
BBC Audio The Aboriginal professor who was expelled from school at 13
Jack Beetson is a Ngemba Aboriginal man from western New South Wales in Australia. In the late 1960s when he was choosing subjects for high school, Jack was interested in studying commerce and history. Then a teacher told him; "Aboriginal kids don't study those subjects," diverting him to woodwork and metalwork instead. One year later aged 13, Jack was expelled with the other Aboriginal boys in his class and earned money picking cotton in the cottonfields. It wasn't until Jack was 28 years old and living in Sydney that he decided to go back to school and complete his education. He enrolled at Tranby College, Australia's oldest Indigenous college. After graduating he went on to become a teacher at Tranby and then the college Principal. He quickly became a well-known name in education in Australia, playing a role in drafting the UN's Declaration on the Rights of Indigneous Peoples and was awarded a UN Unsung Hero Award. Today he's director of the Literacy for Life Foundation, championing Indigenous adult literacy programmes across Australia. Presenter: Jo Fidgen Producer: May Cameron Get in touch: outlook@ or WhatsApp +44 330 678 2707 (Photo: Jack Beetson. Credit: Joy Lai/State Library NSW)
ABC News
04-07-2025
- General
- ABC News
Record number of Indigenous students graduate but education gap remains
Australian education's racist past is not ancient history for teacher and proud Gamilaroi woman Jenadel Lane, but part of living memory and family lore. "My mum who is alive still today, she always tells the story of the darker you were, the further down the back of the classroom you were," said Ms Lane, the Deputy Principal at Dubbo College Senior Campus. Today, Ms Lane is at the heart of writing a more inclusive chapter in Australian education. Her work was instrumental to Dubbo College having the highest number of Indigenous students graduate Year 12 last year. Figures supplied exclusively to ABC News by the NSW Education Department show these students were part of a record number of 1,934 students statewide to graduate. "We had the most Koori kids that completed Year 12, we had a few Koori kids that actually received high marks in their HSC. And we're hoping that that'll be bigger next year," Ms Lane said. "We still have kids that are coming through that are the first to graduate in their families. That's uplifting." Last year's graduating class included Ms Lane's daughter, Retori Lane, who is this year studying to become a teacher. "Some people, especially Indigenous kids, they have a really low self-esteem and don't really understand what they can do." Jenadel Lane puts her school's success down to a strong team that fosters cultural connections, pride and a sense of belonging, partnering each Indigenous student with a mentor. The school also has cultural captains, leaders in the student body like Selwyn Kelly who can inspire other students. One of 10 children, Selwyn has overcome challenges most teenagers can't imagine. For the last five years he's lived in an Aboriginal hostel in Dubbo almost 400 kilometres away from his family in Bourke. And that's left him feeling a loss of connection to family and culture. "Going back on Country it means a lot to me," Selwyn said. Selwyn has come to love school, which he said turned him from an introvert to a confident, outgoing young man. "It makes me feel proud of who I am and where I come from and my role as a leader at the school. I'm feeling really good about that because I'll be the second person in my family to graduate Year 12," he said. He hopes to pursue a teaching degree at university next year. This year's female cultural captain, Kolorah Newman, is also blazing a trail and hopes to become a police woman when she finishes school this year. "I want to go into the police force to help Aboriginals within the community with law. Obviously a lot of people haven't been treated right. I want to change that," she said. In parts of Australia there has been a backlash to Welcome to Country and Acknowledge of Country which Dubbo College prioritises. But Jenadel Lane points again to recent history to demonstrate why there is a need to foster a sense of inclusion for Indigenous students. Ms Lane was inspired to be a teacher by her grandmother Delma Trindall, a non-Indigenous woman who met and married her grandfather. She said the family lived in fear of welfare authorities at a time when authorities opposed these unions. "My dad tells the story of why his parents were droving so much when he was a child and it was to keep them all together, because the welfare was after him and his siblings," Ms Lane said. That promise she made to her grandmother Delma, known as Delly, inspired her through her own challenges with racism. "I think that's why Aboriginal people do what we do in education, in any institution for that matter, it's to re-build that trust," Ms Lane said. It was just one of many stories of exclusion. Professor Melitta Hogarth from the University of Melbourne also knows its sting. She was born in New South Wales in 1974, just two years after the end of a policy called exclusion on demand. The policy began in 1902 and could see Indigenous children kicked out of school if a single parent complained. "Parents were able to put in complaints to principals to say the health and wellbeing of their own children were under duress because of Aboriginal children being in class and hence exclusion on demand," Professor Hogarth said. She said it was just one of many policies across Australia that excluded Indigenous people with impacts still being felt today. "What that does is it means the schooling system is seen as not for us and it's carried on through an intergenerational understanding that education is a place we're going to struggle," she said. Over decades governments have worked hard to overcome this history but system-wide success in schools remains elusive despite investments in the billions. The Indigenous Advancement Strategy announced in 2020 by the Commonwealth government allocated $1.24 billion for children and schooling over three years. Last year, the federal government announced a further $110 million spend over four years to accelerate closing the education gap. On top of that, state governments often have their own annual initiatives in the tens of millions. Despite these investments most statistics still show a large achievement gap which Professor Hogarth said had implications later in life. "What it means is these kids are going to have trouble going beyond Year 10. Quite often we see that the transition into senior secondary is not as high for Indigenous students," Professor Hogarth said. "It limits the kinds of futures they can imagine for themselves." She said Indigenous people needed to be more involved in solutions. Catherine Liddle, the CEO of SNAICC, a national voice for Indigenous children, said the achievement gap started young. "Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children are nearly twice as likely as non-Indigenous children to fall behind in developmental milestones before starting school," Ms Liddle said. "We know that when our children start school behind, it's harder for them — and for their teachers — to catch up. That shows up in results like NAPLAN, where Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children are failing at four times the rate of their non-Indigenous classmates." Ms Liddle said in remote areas as many as 90 per cent of Indigenous students weren't meeting literacy and numeracy benchmarks. She welcomed new government initiatives in early childhood education with one caveat. "We need genuine partnerships with Aboriginal community-controlled organisations (ACCOs) to deliver early education services that are culturally strong, locally driven, and proven to work," she said. Back on the ground at Dubbo College Senior Campus, Jenadel Lane agrees it's the secret sauce for writing a different history. "Definitely recommend having someone who's a go-to for every kid. Every Koori kid, they need a person that they can go to, either a mentor or for academics and wellbeing, but they need a go-to that can manage, support, motivate, inspire and push," she said.
