Overview

Forewords by Jackie Huggins and Sam Watson

In collaboration with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander tertiary students

In this text, Jan Stewart accomplishes a two-fold task: a methodological challenge of co-constructing, with a group of students, a research-based account of Indigenous success in an Australian university.

This book is as much about a methodology for conversing with others and listening to their voices as it is about Indigenous narratives of success. This is a finely grained and highly readable study. It provides valuable insights for the research community as well as for those interested in Indigenous students' experiences of traversing spaces between their university studies, their backgrounds, and their ways of being Indigenous.

Pam Christie

Assoc Professor, The University of Queensland, & UNESCO Chair of Education for Diversity and Development, University of Witwatersrand, South Africa

Jan's passion, commitment and interpersonal skill and her supportive interest in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students is clear. Her work demonstrates a respectful, reciprocal and reflective relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous colleagues working together on a shared project. It presents a model for future research practice. To this end, then, this is a project of reconciliation.

Professor Jo-Anne Reid

President: Australian Association for Research in Educatiopn

Table of Contents

Introduction

• Ian Christesen
  Sunshine Coast Environment Council (SCEC)
• Sonya Wallace
  Sunshine Coast Energy Action Centre (SEAC)
• Phillip Moran
  Noosa and District Landcare
• Sandy McBride
  Queensland Environmentally Sustainable Schools Initiative and the Maroochy Catchment Centre
• Jo Turner
  Eco-Design and Education Consultant
• Cr Keryn Jones
  Sunshine Coast Regional Council
• Cr Vivien Griffin
  Sunshine Coast Regional Council
• Susie Chapman
  SEQ Catchments Ltd
• Justin Holbrook
  Sustainable Urban Development and Technology (SUDTEC)
• Bob Cameron
  Rockcote Enterprises Pty Ltd

Reviews

As an Indigenous tertiary student who had the privilege of partaking in this significant, unprecedented research upon narratives of Indigenous success, I commend Jan on her valuable conceptualisation and insight conveyed throughout this valuable research. My ongoing narrative as an Indigenous student at the University of Queensland has been recorded and accurately analysed with great depth within this publication. The 'success' Jan talks about within her research, for myself personally, would not have been realized as a student at the University of Queensland without the unwavering, tireless and valuable support of the staff and my fellow students at the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Unit. I encourage others through my positive experience to contribute to postgraduate research; academia and institutions have much to gain from research like Jan Stewart's.

Jayde Fuller, University of Queensland