Student Leadership Conference

Attendees will choose one of the following workshops in the morning session

Leadership to Inspire

Mark Moore, Training Consultant - Institute for Communication, Management & Leadership

Leadership is multifaceted - often it is associated with profitability, deadlines and results, but these are by-products of effective leadership. There is the organisational and communication aspect, where the leader takes this information and crafts it into a clear vision and motivates others to embrace it. There is the team aspect, where a leader unites people and inspires them to cooperate and support each other in the pursuit of this vision. Finally, a leader inspires individuals and helps them to grow and fulfil their potential. The most effective leaders understand that success happens with people, and that growing and developing employees is an integral part of the equation that leads to high performing teams. Human-centred leadership focuses on people, and building and maintaining strong relationships with your team.

In this session we will explore this aspect of leadership in more detail: We will examine:

• typical mistakes for leaders to avoid
• what prevents some staff from realising their potential
• how to identify what motivates and energises your staff
• techniques to help them realisetheir goals

Mark has over 30 years of training, consulting and presenting experience. He has designed and delivered a wide range of technical and conceptual courses and presentations over this period. He has an Economics and International Politics degree from UNISA and the University of the Witwatersrand and has delivered over 2000 programs to over 200 organisations across several countries. His approach to training is to blend theory with lessons drawn from actual work experience. To achieve this end presentations are delivered in accordance with Modern Adult Learning Principles. Mark works hard to establish an open and trusting environment where participants are comfortable to share and explore these real-life experiences. His approach is to avoid over theorising - the emphasis is on practicality. Mark believes that participants should be able to immediately apply some of the tools and techniques they have learned.

Storytelling for Impact

Fleassy Malay, Writer, Educator, Performer

This session presents a deep skillset of storytelling techniques. With a focus on connection and harnessing of theatre skills, we look at how to foster a deeper connection with your audience utilising some basic storytelling techniques on stage. This workshop gives lived experience and practical exercise

Two times TEDx speaker and award winning poet, Fleassy Malay is an Internationally renowned, evocative and powerful spoken word artist, speaker and coach. A global advocate for Women’s and LGBTQI+ rights and a fierce voice for the power of authenticity and courage as a social change tool. She is the founder of Melbourne’s acclaimed not for profit organisation and Women's Spoken Word event, Mother Tongue Poetry. A passionate, powerful, vulnerable and honest performer who's words leave a profound impression. Fleassy has a theatrical and yet deeply authentic performance and speaking style renowned for captivating their audiences with depth, honesty, and humor. Alongside their own course and classes Fleassy also educates doctors and clinical staff for PMCV on Communicating with Confidence.

Earned Leadership as True Leadership

Dr Teresa De Fazio OAM (MAICD), Director, Intersect Global Partners

Leaders are shaped by their vision, motivation, and sense of responsibility in engaging with people and the work before them. Each leader has a certain skill set, but they will also be shaped by their many formative experiences, some of which they will not even notice. This workshop will explore how people transform into leaders and provide an opportunity to reflect on what you bring. This highly interactive and thought-provoking workshop explores and breaks down various key notions which are integral to leading a healthy and productive environment around them, whether it be a workplace, team or community organisation.

Workshop participants will:

• explore their personal leadership pathway
• identify how they limit themselves in achieving or recognising ;their leadership potential
• consider strategies to ensure that leadership provides equitable opportunities and practices for all as part of the responsibility of being a leader
• examine the notion of earned leadership
• have fun as they reveal their leadership self.

Dr. Teresa De Fazio OAM has a strong background as an academic in the fields of education, inclusion and equity and leadership. She is the Director of Intersect Global Partners organisation that focuses on supporting a broad range of equity and inclusion initiatives with corporate, government and not for profit entities. She remains an Adjunct Fellow of Victoria University. She has published various books, reports and papers and presented at both national and international conferences. Teresa was awarded the Order of Australia in 2021 for her services to tertiary education.

Teresa mentors and champions people who also contribute to bettering the community and workplace. A passionate advocate for multiculturalism, she was appointed as Commissioner for the Victorian Multicultural Commission for two terms by the Victorian Government. Teresais a Board Director for Zoos Victoria, and former Board Director of Multicultural Arts Victoria and Edmund Rice Community and Refugee Services. She is also a Community Ambassador for Melbourne Victory Football Club and Love of Languages, and works as a freelance journalist and writer.

Level up your Leadership

Tionne Young, Co-Founder and Programs Director, The ASE Group

Ready to level up your leadership? Join Tionne for a dynamic workshop on leading with energy and intention. Human-centered leadership is about putting people at the heart of everything you do. In Tionne's workshop, you'll gain a deeper understanding of how to lead with empathy, compassion, and intention. You'll learn how to create an environment that values and prioritises the needs of your people and how to build meaningful relationships that drive positive change. Most of all - you'll have heaps of fun!

Tionne Young is a young professional with a passion for creating memorable experiences and opportunities for young people. She is the Program Director at The ASE Group, which is a business for good that deliver education, entrepreneurship and employment programs for Australians of all ages. Their mission is to equip every Australian with the skills, resources and mindset they need to start a business or enter the workforce, regardless of their postcode.

With experience in event management and community building, she has worked with organisations such as the Australian Government, MYOB, and Westpac to deliver youth engagement programs. One of her career highlights was being responsible for the delivery of the Minister's Climate Challenge, featuring the Former US Vice President, Al Gore. Tionne Co-Founded the ASE Group when she was 21 years old. 

She has worked with thousands of young people across Australia and New Zealand and has been responsible for overseeing the delivery of youth engagement for over 180,000 young Aussies. When she's not busy creating events that inspire and empower young people, you can find her cooking up a storm in the kitchen, dabbling in amateur painting, or getting her daily dose of dog.

Photo Booth

Update your LinkedIn photo during the day, and join your new conference friends in group photos during the post-conference networking session!

Helen & Anshi

VU Music Agency's Helen & Anshi are a Melbourne based guitar/vocal duo and the newest addition to the VU Music Agency. They play a variety of pop, soul and indie tunes as well as their own original music infused with similar styles.

Catering and Networking

Enjoy coffee, hot chocolate or a variety of traditional, herbal and fruit-infused teas before the conference begins.

Tea, coffee, hot chocolate and snacks will be served for morning tea.

Lunch will feature a selection of delicious hot and cold options, plus a buffet featuring vegetarian salads, assorted roasted protein and condiments all free of gluten and nuts.

Stay for the post conference networking event and enjoy canapés and beer, wine, soft drink or juice.

The 2021 Student Leadership Conference was on Friday 30 April 2021, with delegates joining online.

The theme was Resilience and Reinvention.

View or download the 2021 Student Leadership Conference program

The event included inspirational keynote speakers, interactive workshops, catering, networking, a LinkedIn photo booth and more!

Keynote address by Professor Adam Shoemaker, Vice-Chancellor & President

Professor Adam Shoemaker is the Vice-Chancellor and President of Victoria University.

Prior to his current appointment, he was Vice-Chancellor of Southern Cross University, and has held senior leadership roles at a number of other Australian universities. He is one of Australia’s leading researchers in the area of Indigenous literature and culture.

Adam has a compelling vision for the future of Victoria University, with a goal to make VU the best dual sector university in the world. Adam is excited to lead VU as we innovate and sharpen our progressive way of learning to ensure graduates are ready to make a real contribution to the workforce, whether it is around the corner or around the world.

Closing Keynote: Nyadol Nyuon

Nyadol Nyuon is a lawyer, community advocate, writer, and accomplished public speaker.

Nyadol was born in a refugee camp in Itang, Ethiopia, and raised in Kakuma Refugee camp, Kenya. In 2005, at the age of eighteen, she moved to Australia as a refugee.

Since then, Nyadol has completed a Bachelor of Arts from Victoria University and a Juris Doctor from the University of Melbourne. She now works as a senior consultant in the Community Crime Prevention Unit of the Victorian Department of Justice.

Nyadol is a vocal advocate for human rights, multiculturalism, the settlement of people with refugee experiences and those seeking asylum. She has worked and volunteered extensively in these areas with a range of organisations.

Nyadol is also a regular media commentator in these areas, having appeared on ABC’s The Drum, as a panellist on Q&A and contributing to The Age, Sydney Morning Herald and the Saturday Paper, to name just a few.

Plenary presentation: Simple strategies for our mental wellbeing

The plenary session will provide a brief overview of the evidence behind the everyday strategies we can use to promote and protect our physical and mental wellbeing. We will share a few examples and practice a couple of brief and simple wellbeing techniques together.

Dr Alex Parker, Executive Director of the Institute for Health and Sport/Professor of Physical Activity and Mental Health

Alex Parker is the Executive Director of VU's Institute for Health and Sport (IHES). IHES addresses real-world problems of local, national and global relevance in both health and sport. Research within IHES encompasses exercise science, active living, chronic disease, biomedical sciences, technology, nursing, community health, psychology, public health, sport performance, sport in society, sport participation and sport business.

As a Professor of Physical Activity and Mental Health, Alex's research examines the role of movement in preventing and treating mental health concerns. Her research is mainly in youth mental health and she is also a practising clinical psychologist. Alex is involved in research to support the mental wellbeing of VU students and is a member of VU's Refreshed Student Mental Health Strategy 2018-2021 Reference Group.

In person workshops

Read about the in person workshops here.

Win the 'What if...?'s War

Anita van Rooyen, Confidence Hackers

You know those thoughts that keep you awake at night? The ones that keep swirling through your head, over and over? Together in this workshop we'll discover ways to win against your ‘what if...?', the ‘why me?’ and the ‘what the?’ thoughts.

Ignite & Rewrite Your Story

Anita van Rooyen, Confidence Hackers

In this interactive session, we'll discover the beliefs that hold us back from moving forward, then using guided vision work, create amazing new beliefs that powerfully move you forward to the version of leader you aim to be.

Resilience in your career & making opportunities

Daniel Lunardi and Tonya Wimhurst, Careers Consultants

In this workshop we'll discuss resilience while searching for jobs and throughout the application process, as well as how to:

• articulate skills developed through COVID-19 (resilience & adaptability)
• network for support
• explore and create opportunities for yourself through freelancing, entrepreneurship, networking, business creation, personal branding and embracing the gig economy in the future of work.

Transform discomfort & vulnerability into strength & resilience

Nicole Melder, Senior Counsellor, VU Wellbeing Services

Students will gain insights into how transformative discomfort, confrontation, and vulnerability can be when leaders have the courage to identify and admit to what we are feeling, even when the feelings may be extremely challenging to cope with. Nicole will share her experiences of being in challenging situations and invite students to share their own, and demonstrate how being open and honest about our vulnerabilities will transform us into agile, resilient and courageous leaders. Nicole will draw on work by Dr Susan David (psychologist and management consultant) to facilitate a discussion around emotions and how our emotions can be used as a strength rather than weakness.

Authentic leadership for planetary health

Jeannie Rea, Associate Professor, Senior Manager Planetary Health

Our planet embodies resilience and reinvention – it always fights back despite all that humans do to destroy it. First Nations peoples around the planet have cared and advocated for the wellbeing of people, place and planet as custodians of Country, despite the relentless destructive impacts of invasion and colonisation. At VU we have made a whole of university commitment to make planetary health part of all we do. Students through participation and leadership in education and research as well as co- and extracurricular activities can make this real.

What makes a leader in transformative change for the wellbeing of people, place and planet? Do we need to reinvent leadership? Explore these questions, and workshop how to be a being a resilient and authentic leader to make a better world today and tomorrow.

Ending gender-based violence - what can men do?

Shelley Hewson-Munro, Teaching Focused Scholar & Project Manager, Working Together with Men

Join a leading expert in the field of gender-based violence and some guys who are working hard to become allies for equity.

Violence against identifying women and gender-based violence is one of the biggest social-justice issues and human-rights violations across the world. Ninety-five per cent of all violent acts are committed by men either towards women or other men, so many of the answers to changing this statistic rely on men joining women to work together to end violence at all levels in our society.

This session will explore:

• Pro-feminism - could this be for you?
• Outdated masculinity norms and their impact on men and our world.
• Tips from men who have tried to be active bystanders and allies.
• Your next steps for becoming an ally and principles that you can use personally, as well as in your leadership roles with men.

Resilient Me

Marian Cronin, Associate Director, Inclusion and Engagement

In small groups, women and female identifying people will have the opportunity to work with Marian for an experience of exploration, learning and growth. Together we will tap into our own resilience, recreating our narratives, examining our "self-talk", taming that "inner critic", and doing a deep dive into the myth that our success is due to "luck".

Yes, I am a human

Emma Sheridan, Senuri Weerasekara & Michael Deppeler, Student Mentors

This workshop will focus on human interaction, team building after isolation, group work and resilience. During our workshop we will be doing some interactive activities using a giant Jenga in the form of a competition. As fellow colleagues, we will also be focusing on the student experience during one of the toughest years we faced in 2020.

Building Resilience in a Disruptive World

Associate Professor Thinh Nguyen, Head of VU Academy

The last 12 months have seen unprecedented disruption and change. Many found it challenging, while other saw opportunities to thrive. What makes one person resilient while others falter from the stress? This workshop will present the science behind resilience and how to build it.

Online workshops

Read about the online workshops here.

Placemaking & planetary health possibilities for reinventing relatings

Dr Helen Widdop Quinton, Lecturer & Research Fellow, Institute for Sustainable Industries and Liveable Cities & Paramitha Eka Putri, PhD Candidate

Place and planetary health are both generative concepts for rethinking our relationships with and between people, places and the planet. In this workshop we will explore these concepts and some applications. Through case examples we will draw attention to possibilities for placemaking, building resilience, restoration through nature connections, contact zones for action, and shifting of worldviews for planetary health.

As a workshop group we will identify strategic possibilities for your own place based and resilience activities.

Overcoming Implicit Biases & Covert Racism

Stefan Sambol, PhD Candidate - Institute of Health and Sport

An inescapable reality is we make thousands of decisions a day, ranging in severity and the amount of mental effort we apply when making a decision. There are many mental shortcuts we take to save time and effort. However, through these "automated" decision-making processes we are susceptible to biases and display clear favouritism for our own in groups.

In this workshop we will cover implicit cognition, how through our life experiences we have unconsciously made associations that may negatively affect how we interact with people of different ethnicities, gender, or sexual orientation. You will have the opportunity to complete a racial implicit association task and learn what "unconscious biases" you may harbour. Most importantly, we will learn what it means to have these implicit biases and how to be more "conscious" when interacting with others.

Using feedback to gain the edge in your next job interview

Justine Warne, Coordinator Enterprise Skills Development, Employability & Success

This workshop will explore how to use feedback to your advantage in your next job interview. You will learn how to ask for constructive feedback, and how to apply it to give you the edge that will help you land the job you want.

The 2019 Student Leadership Conference took place on Friday 5 April 2019.

The theme was Inclusive Leadership: Leadership for All.

OPENING KEYNOTE

Professor Marcia Devlin, Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Senior Vice-President, Victoria University

WORKSHOPS

Empathy, body language, tolerance and words: What have they got to do with inclusive leadership?
Presented by: Alison Whan, Senior Alumni Relations Coordinator & Bec Carey-Grieve, Manager, Cultural Diversity, Footscray University Town

Advance Your Inner Leader
Presented by: Amy Liston, Learning Advisor – Careers

LEGO Serious Play
Presented by: Vicky Schilling, Talent Connect Coordinator, Victoria University & Annique Teycheney, Industry Mentoring Project Officer, Victoria University

Developing an Intercultural Leadership Mindset
Presented by: Dr Teresa De Fazio, Manager, Cultural Diversity, Victoria University

Sharing Aboriginal Story & Testing Your Cultural Lens
Presented by: Karen Jackson, Director, Moondani Balluk

Is Inclusive Leadership 21st Century Leadership?
Presented by: Marian Cronin, Senior Manager, Respect & Responsibility, Victoria University

The Enlightened Leader
Presented by: Tanya Camilleri, Facilitator, Neuroscience Coach and Speaker, The WRAP Group

Creating Diversity in Leadership
Presented by: Victoria University Student Union (VUSU) Executive team

CLOSING KEYNOTE

Tasneem Chopra, cross-cultural consultant and writer

The 2017 Student Leadership Conference took place on Friday 1 September 2017.

The theme was Leadership for Social Change.

Conference speakers

Rebecca Scott is the co-founder and CEO of award-winning social enterprise STREAT. Scientist turned social entrepreneur, Bec grew STREAT from a single food cart in 2010 to a portfolio of seven businesses. STREAT has served 2 million customers, and provided over 55,000 hours of training to over 800 young people.

Kon Karapanagiotidis OAM is a lawyer, social worker and teacher who has worked with individuals facing inequality and oppression for the past 26 years. Kon founded the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre (ASRC) in 2011. ASRC is the largest organisation helping people seeking asylum in Australia.

Koky Saly was born in Cambodia in a temple that had been converted to a prison for pregnant woman. Koky and his family sought asylum in Australia when the war ended. He has pursued his interest in community support through his work with BabyTree Projects, a non-profit organisation he founded in 2007, and Beekeeper, which he launched in 2014.

Liz Mordaunt is the Student Leadership Coordinator at Victoria University, where she is responsible for developing leadership programs. She is also a long-time volunteer for Forever Friends Pet Rescue.

Mirai Kirsanovs is the co-founder and director of Asia Options. Asia Options is an online community and information hub that aims to empower and enable young Australians to access professional and educational opportunities across Asia. She has worked in the not-for-profit sector in China and the U.S. and now works at Asia Australia Mental Health.

Conrad Tracey is a thought leader in the start-up, music and local community. He is currently working with Inspire9 to empower small teams and individuals to achieve greatness through generating connections locally, nationally and globally. Conrad is a passionate entrepreneur with a deep interest in problem solving, leadership, community and helping people prosper.

Vanessa Doake is a co-founder of Code Like a Girl, a highly successful and award-winning organisation that provides girls with the support, tools and knowledge to enter and flourish in the world of coding. Vanessa leads HR and Operations at the Women's Legal Service Victoria and serves as a committee member for the Australian Human Resource Institute Diversity Network.

Vincent Shin has a Bachelor of Laws (Hons) from Victoria University. In 2016 he was the recipient of the Modelling a Generous Community Award from the Commission for Children and Young People, and a finalist in the Young Achiever Alumni Award category at VU's Alumni Awards. Employed by Westjustice, Vincent is based at The Grange P12 College in Hoppers Crossing and provides legal advice and representation to students.

The 2015 Student Leadership Conference took place on Friday 21 August 2015.

The theme was Challenges of Change.