The Department of Military Studies at the University of Sydney ran courses from 1907 to 1915. The manner in which it functioned and the role it played is not widely understood, in particular how it was integrated with the Commonwealth Military Forces. Within the history of the development of the Australian military it is usually treated as a…

Attention to precarious employment in higher education settings been growing in the last two decades. Discussion of this form of employment in higher education has focused on impacts on the quality of teaching and student experience, particularly in undergraduate courses where the majority of casual staff are employed. However, little has been…

Prospective secondary mathematics teachers in Australia are typically taught by mathematics educators and mathematicians who work in different faculties and seldom collaborate--a situation that can lead to conflicting views about how to teach mathematics. This paper reports on findings from semi-structured interviews with three mathematics teacher…

This paper responds to a growing literature arguing that change in higher education institutions might be better understood and managed if such institutions are understood as complex systems with emergent properties. Based on complexity theory, the paper articulates a set of characteristics that might be expected if institutions are in fact acting…

Unsustainable living is a critical challenge for all sectors of society. While many universities promote sustainability by supporting campus resource efficiency and sustainability-focused research, these approaches fail to harness the full power of higher education. We argue that Education for Sustainability (EfS) should be at the heart of higher…

"We have too many first-year statistics students but too few who choose to major in statistics" is a common complaint among academics in the discipline of statistics, and our department is no exception. Many non-statistics academics appreciate the value of statistics to their discipline and include at least one statistics unit in their…

Purpose: The achievement of the sustainable development goals (SDGs) for all communities and jurisdictions require a comprehensive roadmap that encompasses all dimensions of data infrastructure, social, economic, environmental and governance ecosystems. With this in mind, this paper aims to establish the link between the curriculum and intended…

Using the example of cross-cultural philosophy's relation to disciplinary philosophy, this article seeks to think through some of the issues relevant to diversifying philosophy as an academic discipline. Guided by James Tully's ruminations on non-domination, it attempts to make a case for a practice of philosophy which is more attuned to its…

A growing body of research supports the learning and teaching of reflective practice in higher education; however, the application of reflective skills beyond the classroom, and specifically in professional development, is underdeveloped. While the value of reflective practice may not be clearly apparent for academic and professional staff,…

This study examined the relationship between different views of teaching and dimensions that differentiate academic disciplines. A total of 114 academics within Greece and 127 academics from similar disciplines but other countries were compared using the Teaching Perspectives Inventory (TPI). Distinctions among disciplines for both groups were…

In 1954, Hugh Stretton took charge of a threadbare history department at the University of Adelaide. By the end of his tenure as department chair in 1966, staff numbers had increased fivefold and the department was recognised as one of the best of its kind in Australia. Stretton wanted his department to "teach history interestingly",…

This research tests whether Holderness Jr., D. K., Myers, N., Summers, S. L., & Wood, D. A. [(2014). "Accounting education research: Ranking institutions and individual scholars." "Issues in Accounting Education," 29(1), 87-115] accounting-education rankings are sensitive to a change in the set of journals used. It provides…

This study provides an insight into the collegiality of Australian accounting academics and the association of collegiality with their work-related attitudes and academic performance. Data were collected by a survey questionnaire from a random sample of 267 accounting academics within Australian universities. The results suggest a moderate level…

This paper analyses shifts in the representation of history and physics as named organisational units on Australian university websites over the last 15 years in the context of broader questions about the production of knowledge in contemporary times. It derives from a broader project concerned with disciplinarity, changing university contexts and…

The need for appropriately trained teachers to teach in its schools has been a priority for the Department of Education (hereafter referred to as the Department) since the beginning of public education in New South Wales in the 1850s. This paper presents an overview of the provisions made by the Department for the musical development of its…