2019 has been a year of change for Avondale Business School (ABS)! Some of our highlights include attendance at conferences by Peter Williams and Lisa Barnes to present on current research being undertaken at ABS (in the USA, Melbourne and Brisbane). Conferences included Accounting & Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand (AFFANZ) with 2 papers already accepted to the February 2020 Sydney International Business Research Conference hosted by AABL.
This year also saw a restructure of our Bachelor of Business Program to be rolled out in 2020. This restructure has reduced the units in both the Human Resource Management Major and the Marketing Major, allowing students to complete 2 Majors within the 3 years, instead of 3 ½ years. Feedback from current students has been very positive!
2020 will also see a new unit being offered as a core unit to students. This unit is BBUS15050 Information Technology Systems in Business, it was designed by our own Dr Homa Freeman and will be delivered by her in Semester 1, 2020.
Semester 2 saw the ABS staff compete against students in the unit BBUS37400 Strategic Responses in Business. It was a huge learning curve for both staff and students in understanding how to run a business in all its capacity including operations, Human resources, financial performance and business decisions. Students once again performed really well in the online business simulation, with ABS staff coming together weekly to make strategic decisions in a competitive environment (and yes we did outperform our students, but it would have been embarrassing if we didn’t!).
2020 saw our new status as a University College, a huge complement to our quality assurance program here at Avondale, and a big congratulations to all staff involved in the transition. You will see an updated ABS logo in 2020, encompassing the new University College Status.
2019 also saw Dr Peter Williams promoted to Senior Lecturer level, and Dr Warrick Long stepping into the role as Post Graduate Course Convenor. Warrick also has plans to review the current Master of Leadership & Management program in 2020 for its offering in 2021, so we will keep you posted! Warrick as also been very busy this year in his role as a Board member on several external Boards and internal Avondale Committees. He has also been guest speaker at many conferences and professional development days for our Industry Partners, and delivered his LEAD program to staff here at Avondale.
All staff here at the ABS have continued to put students first, whilst balancing family and even study commitments. Diane Smith is currently undertaking a Bachelor of Business Degree and Lisa Barnes is currently completing a Graduate Diploma in Counselling. Warrick is continuing in his preferred role of Grandfather, whilst Peter prepares to send his second child (and first son) to “big school” next year. This year saw the graduation of Lisa Barnes daughter from Central Coast Adventist School, and Diane’s son receiving a special end of year academic award from his school.
We have just completed our final strategic planning day for 2019 where we review all our units we have taught and assess for any changes in delivery, content and assessment. The only thing left on our agenda this year is graduation. Collectively our favourite day of the year! We have students graduating from both our Bachelor of Business undergraduate degree as well as our Masters of Leadership & Management post graduate degree.
On behalf of ABS, we wish you all a safe and merry Christmas, we hope you get to spend time with the people you love and have some time to reflect on the year that is past and the coming year ahead.
Associate Professor Lisa Barnes, Head, Avondale Business School