Jackie Lublin (Deceased)

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Honorary life membership is being conferred upon Associate Professor Jackie Lublin, particularly in recognition of her long and distinguished service to the Society. As one of the early members of the Society she served on the Executive from 1973 to 1985. During this period she served as Secretary for two years, 1979 to 1980, and as President for four years, 1980 to 1983. She was convenor of the HERDSA Conference in Sydney in 1984 and editor of Research and Development in Higher Education, Volume 7. Her work for the Society also included active involvement the generation of policy submissions to bodies such as the Australian Commonwealth Tertiary Education. Her Green Guide No. 6, Conducting Tutorials, was published in 1987. It has proved to be one of the most popular of all the Green Guides and is still in demand both in Australasia and elsewhere .

As Director of the Centre for Teaching and Learning at the University of Sydney, Associate Professor Lublin made a distinguished contribution to teaching and learning in higher education. In more recent years, her work to improve the quality of teaching in universities has been recognised through a range of consulting opportunities in Australian universities. She has encouraged HERDSA to give serious consideration to the issue of accreditation of university teachers, initially promoting discussion of the issues across the sector, then working on the preparation of a HERDSA discussion document. During a recent visit to the United Kingdom she monitored developments in this area on behalf of the Society. Most recently Jackie acted as a consultant for the Society, with a brief to prepare a strategy document outlining a way forward for the 'HERDSA recognition of courses for university teaching ' initiative.

In my brief time as President of HERDSA, Jackie has been there quietly in the background , willing to provide advice and assistance and continually supportive of the primary purposes of the Society . It gives me great pleasure, on behalf of the Society, to confer Life Membership on Associate Professor Jackie Lublin.

Farewell Jackie Lublin
HERDSA Connect Vol. 44 No. 2

Jacqueline Lublin was born in 1937 and grew up in suburban Melbourne. She attended the newly established Camberwell High School where she seems to have embraced their moto of “’learning to be considerate to others” as it was a trait she demonstrated throughout her professional life, despite considerable opposition to her ideas on improving university teaching. Jackie, as she was known to almost everyone, went to University High School which was walking distance from the University of Melbourne, the Institution she later graduated from with a Bachelor of Arts and Diploma of Education.

After graduating Jackie taught English in high school before moving into tertiary teaching at Preston Institute of Technology in Victoria. A meeting of minds with Barbara Falk in 1972 inspired Jackie to set up an Educational Development Unit at Preston. Jackie then joined the recently formed HERDSA Executive to develop links with other educational development units that were being established in universities and colleges across Victoria.

Jackie undertook multiple roles on the HERDSA Executive where she continued to serve for the next twelve years. In 1975 Jackie moved to Lincoln Institute of Health Sciences as a Senior Lecturer to set up another educational development unit. While on the HERDSA Executive Jackie convened two HERDSA conferences — the second ever HERDSA conference in Melbourne in 1976 and the 1984 conference in Sydney, when she stepped in at very short notice after the previous convenor had abruptly left.

In 1978 Jackie went to NSWIT to establish her third educational development unit, an experience that convinced her of the importance of maintaining an academic profile when working with academic staff. Jackie was elected HERDSA President in 1981 and on behalf of the Society lobbied government bodies to consider policies that would improve tertiary teaching. Soon after, Jackie joined the University of Sydney as a Senior Lecturer in the Centre for Teaching and Learning, eventually becoming the Director when Mick Dunkin left to pursue his research career. Jackie’s approach to academic staff development was to be out where the staff were, and she was active in the Staff Association and the Staff Union in an effort to become better known by academic staff. On the way home, after a hard day trying to get equal-to-research recognition for teaching in a research-intensive university, she would invariably stop in at the University Staff Club to catch up with colleagues.

Jackie was a champion of small group teaching and published the HERDSA Green Guide Conducting Tutorials in 1987 which went on became one of HERDSA’s most popular guides and was later published (with Kathryn Sutherland) as a second edition in 2009. In the mid-1990s Jackie worked with HERDSA on the formal recognition of courses for university teaching and promoted the accreditation of university teachers, an idea which became the foundation that would lead to the HERDSA Fellowship Scheme. Jackie retired as Director of the CLT in 1997 and became a HERDSA life member in 1999. She continued to work as a consultant for the following 10 years, helping to establish her fourth academic development unit at Central Queensland University, and will be remembered as a pioneer of academic development in Australia. Jackie died on 16 February 2022, aged 85.