The Office of Elder Academic and Cultural Leadership (OEACL) offers seminars that merge academic disciplines with cultural engagement to reflect and capture the essence of the Batchelor Institute experience and ideology.

As a part of this year’s seminar series, OEACL recently hosted a range of guest speakers undertaking a Higher Degree by Research at Batchelor Institute. It provided opportunities for a range of candidates currently studying with Batchelor Institute in the Masters or Doctoral programs, specialising in Indigenous Perspectives, to present their work and to watch presentations of their peers.

On Thursday 4th May 2017 at Batchelor Campus, as part of the Graduate School’s twice yearly Masterclass week, staff and students were fortunate to hear from four candidates who chose to contribute to the OEACL seminar:

Lexine Solomon: PhD topic – Music and Torres Strait Islander Female Identity

Jenny Fraser: PhD topic – Get Creative! The Art of Healing and Decolonisation

Lawrie Webster: Masters topic – Historical Analysis of Indigenous Education in the Northern Territory

Delvene Cockatoo-Collins: PhD topic – Arts Based Inquiry into Oral History of Mermaids

Jenny Fraser has also been recognised as our most recent candidate to have a successful outcome from examination of her doctoral thesis with Batchelor Institute.

The audience included Batchelor Institute staff and students, who were privileged to hear the range of research interests from our students and learn about their journeys as a candidate.  In closing, the crowd was treated to an original song performance crafted by Lexine Solomon.

Batchelor Institute’s Higher Degrees and Research is focused on four areas of research excellence; Indigenous Education, Indigenous Languages, Indigenous Livelihoods and Indigenous Creative Arts.