About the Presenters
Ortrun Zuber-Skerritt
Ortrun Zuber-Skerritt is Director of OZI (Ortrun Zuber International P/L), specializing in action learning and action research, leadership development programs, postgraduate research training and supervision, including qualitative research methods. She is also Adjunct Professor at Griffith University (Brisbane, Australia); Professor Extraordinaire at Tshwane University of Technology (Pretoria, South Africa); and Regional President Australasia, Global University for Lifelong Learning (GULL). After her under- and postgraduate studies in Germany, she obtained four doctoral degrees since living in Australia: PhD in Literature (University of Queensland), PhD in Higher Education (Deakin University), DLitt in Management Education (International Management Centres Association), and an Honorary Doctor of Professional Studies (GULL). Ortrun has published widely and led projects on ways of improving learning, teaching, management and research in all the universities in Queensland and some in other Australian states, as well as in institutions in New Zealand, Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan, Fiji, Sweden, Holland, Austria, Germany, England, South America and South Africa. Her book publications include Professional Development in Higher Education – A Theoretical Framework for Action Research(1992), Action Research in Higher Education: Examples and Reflections(1992), Action Learning and Action Research: Songlines Through Interviews (2009), Action Leadership: Towards a Participatory Paradigm (2011), and Action Research for Sustainable Development in a Turbulent World (2012).
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Judith Kearney
Judith Kearney is Director, Community Partnerships, in the School of Education and Professional Studies at Griffith University. In recent years, Judith has explored ways to enhance educational opportunities for students from Pacific migrant families in Southeast Queensland, Australia. This has involved a federally funded investigation of Samoan children’s literacy across school and home contexts, and three community partnership projects involving Samoan and other Pacific Islander communities. In the first of these projects, Judith worked with the Samoan community in Brisbane to capture their stories in a series of bilingual children’s books, written in both Samoan and English. The second project involved a program of mentoring to raise the aspirations of Pacific Islander students in secondary schools and to facilitate their transition to higher education. In the third project, Judith convened a university-community partnership underpinned by principles of action learning and human potential ideology. The aim of this partnership was to promote social inclusion through lifelong and life-wide learning and empowerment. Judith has published 14 papers and reports in the last four years. Her co-authored publications with Ortrun include a monograph (Actioning Change and Lifelong Learning in Community Development, 2011), a book chapter and a journal article.
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Amy Buddie
Amy Buddie Interim Associate Director for Graduate Student Support and Undergraduate Research; Associate Professor of Psychology; Kennesaw State University
Dr. Buddie earned her MA in 1998 and her PhD in 2001 in social psychology from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. She completed two years of postdoctoral training at the Research Institute on Addictions at the University of Buffalo before joining Kennesaw State University in 2003. As a faculty member in the psychology department, she conducted research on alcohol and risky sexual behavior, attitudes about rape, consenting to unwanted sex, and attitude change resulting from coursework. Before becoming a full-time CETL Associate Director in 2011, she was the Associate Coordinator of Gender and Women’s Studies (GWST) and the CETL Faculty Fellow for Advancing Undergraduate Research/Creative Activity. She currently coordinates the Southeastern Conference on the Teaching of Psychology (SETOP) as well as KSU’s Symposium of Student Scholars. She also manages the funding awards for undergraduate research and supports graduate teaching assistants through workshops, classroom observations, and individual consultations. She is currently the editor of the Kennesaw Journal of Undergraduate Research. In 2010, she won the Kennesaw State University Distinguished Teaching Award.
Student feedback in 2009
I had her for Gender, and she taught it with a discussion format. No tests or textbooks, only a lot of articles to read and a massive paper to write about two inexpensive books! I learned SO much because she really facilitated learning through the discussions in and out of class. She makes you think critically, even if it's not easy
