Academic Council

Professor. Shelley KinashChair of Academic Council

Biography

Professor Shelley Kinash is an executive leader with over 30 years’ experience in tertiary education. Her substantive position is as Universal Higher Education’s Chief Academic Officer. In addition to the Academic Council, she is Chair Academic Board for another private tertiary education provider, enabling benchmarking and cross-fertilisation. Her ongoing research is practice-based, deriving impact on student voice and equity, and graduate career outcomes. She is a Principal Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, and a Faculty-member of the Australasian Council on Open and Digital Education’s Learning Technologies Leadership Institute. As a teaching academic, she facilitated student learning in educational technology, inclusive education, teacher preparation and community rehabilitation and disability studies. As an executive leader across three Australian universities, she has led institution-wide quality, learning, teaching and student experience. This 360 approach to her career journey enables Professor Kinash to lead joined-up collaboration and communities of practice, facilitating high-quality experiences and outcomes for students, graduates, staff and communities.

Dr. Florin OprescuAssociate Professor in Public Health, Health Promotion, University of the Sunshine Coast - External Academic Representative

Biography

Dr Florin Oprescu is a health promotion and communication specialist. His formal qualifications include medicine (MD), public health (MPH, PhD), business management (MBA) and education (Grad Cert). He works on initiatives including health promotion education, health communication, injury prevention, and translation of scientific findings into practical and accessible public health content, especially for vulnerable populations and limited resource settings. For example, his doctoral work explored health communication in online communities, including knowledge management and sharing for disability care. A recent health communication research project was in collaboration with the national health promotion charity Hello Sunday Morning led by USC graduate Chris Raine.

Florin’s experience encompasses a range of projects across topics and disciplines including medicine, nursing, paramedic science, occupational therapy, information technology, communication and education. He is currently contributing to programs and research designed to enhance teaching and learning in higher education, particularly in health disciplines. Examples include action research, first-year experience, assessment as learning and use of information technology in education. A research project example is Expert in my pocket: A mobile-enabled repository of learning resources for the development of clinical skills in student health professionals.

Associate Professor Barbara ParkerExecutive Director: UniSA Online – External Academic

Biography

Associate Professor Barbara Parker is a Registered Nurse, holds a Bachelor of Science (Honours), Graduate Certificate in Education (Higher Ed) and a PhD (Medicine) from the University of Adelaide and has worked in both health and higher educational systems. Barb joined the University of South Australia in 2005 following an extensive clinical career in both public and private healthcare settings and undertook teaching, research, and leadership roles in the discipline of Nursing & Midwifery until 2017 when she was appointed the inaugural Academic Director: UniSA Online. In this role Barb was responsible for building and leading the academic team and activities in this new unit.

Since 2021 Barb has been the Executive Director: UniSA Online where she is responsible for the overall operation of the University of South Australia’s online unit that has a particular focus on delivering high quality fully online degrees and fostering a customer service culture to continually improve the experience of students. Barb is an experienced researcher and has published in the areas of nutrition, appetite regulation, diabetes, nursing and the use of simulation in education. Barbara is a Fellow of the Governor’s Leadership Foundation program and a member of the TEQSA Register of Experts.

Professor. Roberta CrouchProfessor in Business Management, Flinders University; Business Coach Co, Business and Education Consultancy – External Academic

Biography

Roberta is a Professor in Business Management at the college of Business, Government and Law at Flinders University. She the past director of the MBA and Masters of Business programs. She is also a past director of the MSc in Wine Business at the ESC Dijon Burgundy School of Business (France) and the Masters in Wine Business program and Chair of the University of Adelaide Wine Future Research Cluster. She has conducted consumer behaviour research and, more specifically, the drivers of premium purchase decisions respective to wine, tourism, international services and a range of other products and services extensively, nationally and internationally, in both established and developing markets. She is widely published in both academic and business publications. Roberta also has led a number of substantial research projects for Wine Australia. Additionally, Roberta has consulted and provided strategic advice to industry, education and government stakeholders across a wide range of business related activities; marketing planning, branding and positioning, export strategies, building business relationships and business planning.

Roberta has extensive international business experience, conducting research and/or consulting in the United States, United Kingdom, France, Singapore, Indonesia, India, China, Korea, Vietnam, Italy, Singapore and Germany.

Ema DavisNaturopath, ReMed Natural Medicine Clinic – Alumni Representative

Biography

Ema Davis is a degree qualified Australian Naturopath (BHSc), and an alumni of Endeavour College of Natural Health, Melbourne campus. Practicing primarily via TeleHealth, Ema is a proud member of the practitioner team at The ReMed Natural Medicine Clinic, founded by Director & Naturopath Keonie White. Ema’s clinical interest areas are women’s metabolic health and weight loss, with a keen focus on treating gut dysbiosis, nutritional deficiencies and hormonal imbalance as primary drivers of disease. Ema maintains her own primary naturopathic business, operating under the business name Ema Davis Naturopathy, and is registered through the NHAA.

Commencing her studies towards a Bachelor of Health Science (Naturopathy) through Endeavour College, Ema was awarded an Academic School Leavers scholarship in 2019. She was an active member of the Student Partners initiative (formerly known as the Student Representative Council) for four years, from 2019 through to 2022, and was invited to the national TEQSA conference in both 2019 and 2022. She accepted an invitation to join the Academic Council as a Student Representative in 2021 and 2022, and later became an Alumni member of the Council in 2023. Ema graduated with Distinction from Endeavour College in December 2022, achieving a graduating GPA of 6.7 / 7.

Christy CollisProvost

Biography

Professor Christy Collis brings over 30 years of higher education experience to the role of Endeavour’s Provost. Christy’s career focus is “making learning work”: ensuring that higher education works for all students, and that higher education learning connects to employment outcomes.

Christy has a strong track record in higher education leadership. Roles she has held include: acting Director of the USQ Central Learning and Teaching Unit, Associate Director of Academic Development for USQ, Founding Head of Department of Entertainment Industries at QUT, founding Head of QUT’s Creative Industries work-integrated learning program, Director of Research Quality for QUT’s Creative Industries faculty, Provost of ICHM and Provost of the Australian Institute of Professional Counsellors. She is a TEQSA Expert.

Christy is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and a three-time elected executive member of the Higher Education Research and Development Society of Australasia (HERDSA), the peak body representing higher education research in Australia. She convened the 2023 HERDSA conference of over 700 delegates. She is a member of the Independent Tertiary Educational Council Australia (ITECA) National Policy Committee and its Regulatory Affairs Recognition Task Group.

Dr. Lorraine MarshalseyDean – Higher Education, Endeavour College

Biography

Lorraine has been an academic, educator and researcher at university level for 15 years. She is Scottish (from Edinburgh), and emigrated to Australia on January 1st, 2015. Lorraine studied for her PhD at Glasgow School of Art in Education (Design), moving from being a visual communication designer in industry to teaching design education in the UK. She then went on to take up a position with Griffith University as the Honours Programme Director and Lecturer overseeing 4th year programs such as Design, Creative & Interactive Media, Fine Art, Photography, Digital Media, and Contemporary Australian Indigenous Art. During a period in Adelaide, Lorraine moved fully into an education-based role at the University of South Australia. As a Senior Lecturer and Curriculum Lead, she taught Pre-Service Teacher Education for Early Years, Primary and Secondary Education, in Design/Food/Textiles/Digital and Technologies for Education. In March 2023, Lorraine launched a start-up campus for Victoria University in Brisbane. As Associate Director of VU, she established eight undergraduate and postgraduate programs in Business, IT and Early Childhood Education.

Lorraine was an Editorial Board Member of the Q1 journal, the International Journal of Art and Design Education (iJade) and one of the Founding Convenors and Member of the Studio Matters design education research community, which hosts members from USA, Sweden, UK, Australia, and Netherlands, among others. In March 2023, Lorraine published her first book on Sensory Affect, Learning Spaces, and Design Education: Strategies for Reflective Teaching and Student Engagement in Higher Education. She is passionate about the physical, social, mental, and cognitive well-being of students and staff in higher education.

Elissa HolswichNational Quality, Governance & Compliance Manager

Biography

Elissa is an experienced policy and compliance specialist, having worked in the field for over 12 years. With a degree in Behavioural Science, she started out in Human Resources roles but found she had an eye for detail and soon gained a role with the Queensland Office of Higher Education, the State higher education regulator where she worked as a Senior Policy Officer (case manager for higher education providers) for over 5 years.

With the centralisation of higher education regulation in Melbourne through TEQSA, Elissa wanted to stay in Queensland and found herself working for one of her previous providers as the ‘internal regulator’, the National Compliance Manager for Endeavour College of Natural Health.

After a year back in the government working with the international schooling regulation team and on a finance policy project, Elissa returned ‘home’ to Endeavour in early 2019 and has continued her earlier work liaising closely with TEQSA, ASQA, the Chinese Medicine Board of Australia and other professional bodies to ensure that the College not only meets but exceeds industry and educational standards. Elissa’s daily goal in her work is to make a real difference to the life of students and staff by offering accurate and timely compliance, governance and policy advice, and building a team of experts to support the business and see it thrive.