Governance rocks: Developing our sectoral superpower - PLTA event

Course description

Portfolio Learning and Teaching Academy presents:
Governance rocks: Developing our sectoral superpower with Professor Christy Collis

About the session

Academic governance is the bedrock of higher education. Academic governance is also currently under scrutiny after the release of two critical reports in 2025: the Senate’s Quality of Governance at Australian Higher Education Providers and the Education Minister’s Final Report and Principles of the Expert Council on University Governance. Both reports identify systemic failures in academic governance of public universities. These failures rightly attract this level of attention because of the power and importance of academic governance: when academic governance doesn’t work, either does higher education. And making higher education work is our business and our responsibility. Academic governance is how we can make our institutions and our sector good places to study and to work; understanding academic governance is a superpower. This session provides a working anatomy of academic governance, further empowering higher education professionals to lead and shape our sector.

About the presenter

Professor Christy Collis, SFHEA, works in the UP Education group, in which she is Provost of the Australian Institute of Professional Counsellors and Endeavour College of Natural Health and Chair of the Academic Board of PSC Creative College. She is the elected President of HERDSA (Higher Education Research and Development Society of Australasia), the Australasian region’s peak professional association representing higher education research and practice. Under Christy’s academic leadership AIPC was recently granted self-accrediting authority by TEQSA, which means that AIPC now has the same authority as universities to accredit its own courses. In previous roles Christy worked as the Director of USQ’s Central Learning and Teaching Unit and as the Director of Research Quality for QUT’s Creative Industries faculty. She’s into governance.

This session will be particularly valuable for professional staff, academic leaders, emerging leaders, managers and anyone seeking a broader understanding of how universities operate within the higher education sector.

We encourage you to take advantage of this unique opportunity to learn from one of Australasia's leading voices in higher education leadership and governance.

We look forward to seeing you online.

Type of course

Web conference

Who should attend

This session will be particularly valuable for:

• professional staff
• academic leaders
• emerging leaders
• managers
• everyone seeking a broader understanding of how universities operate within the higher education sector.

What you will learn

A working anatomy of academic governance, made interesting, further empowering higher education professionals to lead and shape our sector.