The term ‘influencer’ tends to carry a pejorative connotation in HE circles, but at Future Campus, we believe it shouldn’t.
While tired old lists of the top 50 power brokers in the sector seem to keep getting a run in less imaginative periodicals, Future Campus believes that it is worth celebrating and elevating the work of people who are driving positive outcomes through their engagement with the world. These people may hail from the professional or the academic side of the fence and gain notice not for acerbic barbs on X but for public and/or peer-to-peer engagement that creates constructive outcomes.
This month, the inaugural UI of the month award goes to Associate Professor Michael A. Cowling, from CQU, who is proving that individual staff at smaller universities can carry great influence, despite the lack of proximate sandstone.
Michael is the sector’s everywhere man right now, across multiple traditional media channels, publishing a range of really interesting work examining applications of AI in education and everyday life, and is a co-convenor (with U Syd’s Danny Liu and Adam Bridgeman, Monash U’s Tim Fawns and Otago’s Russell Butson) of yesterday’s QI in Higher Education Symposium, which attracted an astonishing 1900+ delegates.
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To nominate University Influencers for future months, please send in your favourite influencer and why they have had a positive impact to news@futurecampus.com.au
