News

Scholars’ Summit brings big ideas to the table

Media Release, Wednesday 2 July 2008

More than 200 students involved in the University of Melbourne’s Kwong Lee Dow Young Scholars Program will have the opportunity to participate in their very own ‘2020’ style summit this Friday, July 4.

The current Year 11 students will participate in the “Kwong Lee Dow Young Scholars’ Summit”, which will include a presentation from the Co-Chair of the Australia 2020 Summit held in Canberra earlier this year, University of Melbourne Vice Chancellor Professor Glyn Davis.

The students will also be involved in their own group sessions, convened by some of the academics who attended the Australia 2020 Summit, including Professor Cheryl Saunders AO, and Professor Collette Tayler.

Every one of the scholars were invited to come up with one ‘big idea’ for inclusion in one of the five group sessions, covering topics such as the Australian economy, infrastructure, governance, Australia’s future in the world, communities and families and Indigenous Australia.

Andrew Devine, Coordinator of the Kwong Lee Dow Young Scholars Program says that “the ideas generated from the Class of 2009 cohort will form a formal response from the Kwong Lee Dow Young Scholars to the issues raised at the April 2008 ‘Youth 2020 Summit’.”

“We will also have one of our current Year 12 Kwong Lee Dow Young Scholars, Linh Do, who will present on her experiences from the Youth 2020 Summit, so it’s a great opportunity to provide some inspiration to the Year 11 cohort .”

The University of Melbourne’s Kwong Lee Dow Young Scholars Program is an academic enrichment program which aims to support and assist Year 11 and 12 students from all over the state. More information on the program is available from www.futurestudents.unimelb.edu.au/courses/kwongleedow.html.

Journalists note: selected Kwong Lee Dow Young Scholars are available for interview about the program and about Friday’s summit. Please contact below.

Academic Profiles:
Professor Collette Tayler holds the Chair in Early Childhood Education and Care in the Melbourne Graduate School of Education. Collette conducts local and cross-national studies of the ways that social, family and educational policies and practices affect early childhood education and care outcomes. Her work addresses access and engagement by children, families and communities; public and private investments; program standards and quality; the curriculum and pedagogy applied in different services; leadership and staff engagement; child and family involvement and program outcomes. Her research seeks to understand and explain both universal principles and contextual variation in the care, education and upbringing of young children.

Professor Cheryl Saunders AO Cheryl Saunders is a laureate professor and holds a personal chair in law. She is Associate Dean (Juris Doctor) within the Law School and Director of the Centre for Comparative Constitutional Studies. Cheryl Saunders has specialist interests in constitutional law and comparative public law, including federalism and intergovernmental relations and constitutional design and change, on all of which she has written widely. She is presently working on two major projects: an account of the Australian Constitution written from a comparative constitutional perspective and a text on comparative constitutional law.

Professor John Langford is the Director of ‘Uniwater’, in the University’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. He was the winner of Peter Hughes award for contribution to water management in Australia, 2000. Uniwater is a small unit, acting as an incubator/hub for research activities in water, with an emphasis on complex, inter-disciplinary activities. Apart from initiating, designing and winning funding for new research in water, Uniwater will play a strong role in knowledge transfer; bringing knowledge, insight and understanding together in trusted and independent forums involving a range of interested stakeholders. The aim of these forums will be to create an active exchange of ideas and responses