For 2020, I have stepped into the role of President for our esteemed Association, and I look forward to working with the Executive Committee as we continue to sustain and grow AAIR as your professional association.
Hello Possums, Kia Ora, G’day Cobber!
I must give a huge thank you and acknowledgment to the outstanding leadership our Immediate Past President, Kathie Rabel, has provided to AAIR. Kathie’s knowledge about our sector across the region and her willingness to share and engage with us all is of huge value to everyone. While Kathie has officially retired from the workforce, we are fortunate that she will continue to contribute to and support AAIR.
The current Committee for 2020 provides expertise and knowledge from a wide range of higher education institutions from across Australasia and is very well supported by our highly regarded Executive Officer, Liesha Northover.
Your current Committee members are:
- Stuart Terry – President
- Don Johnston – Vice President
- Kathie Rabel – Immediate Past President
- Greg Jakob – Honorary Treasurer
- TBA – Honorary Secretary
- Lisa Bolton – elected member
- Andrew Bradshaw – elected member
- Leone Nurbasari – elected member
- Eva Seidel – co-opted member
- Penny Szybiak – elected member
2020 launched the new decade with challenges on many fronts throughout the world. For our little corner of the globe, we saw terrifying bushfires throughout Australia and drought and floods in both Australia and New Zealand. Adding to the challenges of weather is the disturbing COVID19 (formerly novel coronavirus) which is impacting on all tertiary education institutions throughout Australasia.
This period of uncertainty creates an environment for speculation, fake news and irrational claims and behaviour. Our roles as institutional researchers are even more important in this environment as we take the lead gathering, analysing and presenting evidential based data. And keeping the focus on evidential! It is also a time when our own personal and professional ethics may be challenged because people don’t like what the data is telling them or want it presented in a way to support their story. To me, integrity is at the heart of professional ethics and ethical behaviour. Integrity of the data we collect, the integrity of our analysis, and the integrity of how we report, are the foundations of our profession. Reminding ourselves of the AAIR Code of Ethics is one way to support professional and personal integrity in our roles when challenged. Making the most of the networks within AAIR and reaching out to members is another way our professional association can add value to support you into your role and profession.
You have all been invited to participate in our biennial member survey that is currently underway. If you haven’t already done so, please take a few moments to complete our survey. We really want to hear from you, and I do appreciate life is full of questionnaires and polls, and they can cut into valuable seconds you will never get back! Our survey is one of the key ways you can tell us what is working well for you as a member and how we could make AAIR an even better association, so please contribute by using those few valuable minutes to give us your feedback.
Stuart Terry
President, AAIR
Photo of empty boardroom by Drew Beamer on Unsplash
Photo of ‘hello my name is’ with coffee cup by Allie Smith on Unsplash
