Presidential address – 27th Annual AIRAANZ conference: ‘Maybe it’s because I’m green’: transition pedagogies for IR and HR students

Abstract

It is a particular privilege to present the presidential address at the 27th Association of Industrial Relations Academics of Australia and New Zealand (AIRAANZ) conference in Fremantle, Western Australia (WA). My formative years in the industrial relations (IR) field were spent in Perth, mainly as a union industrial officer but also in management consulting and working for the WA Industrial Relations Commission. I completed a Masters in IR at the University of Western Australia (UWA) and my PhD at Murdoch University and taught at UWA and then Edith Cowan University, so Western Australia is my academic as well as professional home base. I recall with great pleasure my years in ‘the Wild West’ of IR and those who were (and are) my colleagues, my comrades, my mentors, my students and – above all – my teachers.

Keywords:

• learning and teaching
• capstone courses
• transition pedagogies and professional identity

Acknowledgements

The author gratefully acknowledges insights, suggestions and editorial input from Toni Blake, John Budd, Sharna Doyle, Janet Ferguson, Kate Flynn, Ben French, Johanna Macneil, Sue Ressia, Gordon Stewart and Maureen Todhunter. The capstone project referred to was funded by the ALTC (now Office of Learning and Teaching) Priority Program Grant PP10-1646 ‘Capstone Courses in Undergraduate Business Degrees: Better Course Design, Better Learning Activities, Better Assessment’. Partners were Griffith University, Macquarie University, Queensland University of Technology, University of Newcastle and University of Wollongong.

Notes

^1. The project’s major output is Bailey et al. (2012) and an associated website, http://www.businesscapstones.edu.au

^2. But, as Kermit the frog sings in Sesame Street, ‘It’s not easy being green’; I am indebted to one of my readers for this point!

^3. I welcome contact with IR and HR academics who would like to access these resources, and share theirs.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Janis Bailey

Janis Bailey is Associate Professor, Department of Employment Relations and Human Resources, Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia. Her research interests include union strategy and campaigning; vulnerable workers including youth, migrants and women; and teaching and learning in industrial relations. Her current projects are on comparative union strategy in retail, gender equity in universities, workplace relations in the hotel industry, and capstone subjects in business degrees.