Maureen Bell’s work demonstrates an outstanding, substantial, and prolonged service of the highest quality to HERDSA. Maureen’s service to the academic and administrative work of HERDSA has contributed significantly to the reputation of this highly regarded academic society. Additionally, she has made important contributions to the development of teaching and learning in Australian and international higher education.

Maureen has been an active – one might say (in the very best sense of the word) ‘hyperactive’  member of HERDSA since 1994. She is one of that relatively small group of people in HERDSA who, seeking no special recognition through high office, work consistently and diligently in the background on critical tasks for the ultimate benefit of all members.

Maureen achieved distinction in becoming a member of the first group of HERDSA Fellows in 2003. She has served three terms on the HERDSA Executive (2003 – 2009), including one year as Treasurer and another year as the Leader of the Membership Portfolio. In more recent years Maureen provided much appreciated editorial support to the late Roger Landbeck during his long editorship of HERDSA News. She took over that role with Roger’s passing in 2014 and, not content to continue in maintenance mode, Maureen has refreshed this important newsletter for members in its present impressive incarnation as HERDSA Connect.

In addition to that demanding work, Maureen has been a member of the HERDSA Guides Committee and an author of two Guides herself, one of which is now in its second edition.

Her contributions to higher education have been independently recognised in several ways, for example, through an Australian Learning and Teaching Council citation for her contributions to the professional development of university teachers. Other forms of independent recognition of her work include numerous consultancies and invitations to work with universities in Australia and New Zealand as well as at the Royal University of Bhutan.

For twenty years, Maureen was Lecturer then Senior Lecturer in Educational Development at the University of Wollongong where, among other duties, she was the co-designer of the University’s Foundations of Teaching Course for academic staff, a course that was featured on the AUQA Good Practice website. Maureen has also been an active contributor to the international literature on higher education through numerous refereed publications – particularly in her specialised field of expertise, peer review of teaching – and through her editorial work for several journals.

Maureen has made a substantial and sustained contribution to HERDSA through her service to the Executive, Editor of HERDSA Connect and as an author of HERDSA Guides. In addition, she has made a distinguished contribution to higher education though her research, writing, practice and stewardship of the field.