Arts & Cultural Inquiry - Staff
Chair/Senior Lecturer
Diane Collins, BA(Hons) UNSW PhD
Lecturers
Jennifer Rowley BA GradDipEd MEd GradDipHigherEd PhD UNSW LTCL Trinity RSA Cert TEFLA
Part-time Staff
Ross Gilbert, BA NE MEd PhD Ill
Daniel Kark, BA(Hons), BCom, MIntSocDev UNSW
Nadine Kavanagh, lic. phil., University of Zurich
Margie McCrae, MCreativeArts Woll
Leigh Straw, BA(Hons) Syd HonDUniv DPhil York
Chair/Senior Lecturer
Diane Collins
Diane Collins is a historian and the author of Sounds from the Stables, a history of the Conservatorium. She is chair of the Arts & Inquiry unit and the Conservatorium's Associate Dean (Teaching and Learning).
Dr. Collins’ research reflects her longstanding interest in Australian cultural history. She is currently interested in the new field of sound history and is working on a book titled Acoustic Journeys: Explorations in the Aural History of Australia. The work examines the evolution of national sound in 19th and early 20th Century Australia. Recent publications include an article on exploration and sound (Australian Historical Studies, October 2006) and a chapter on goldfields sound in Talking and Listening to Modernity, (ANU Press, 2007). In addition to her history of the Conservatorium, her publications include Hollywood Down Under: Australians at the Movies 1896 to the Present Day, a pioneering work on popular culture in Australia.
Dr Collins holds a BA (Honours) from the University of New South Wales and a PhD in history from Sydney University. She taught in the history departments at both UNSW and the University of Sydney and since 1995 has been responsible for the Historical and Cultural Studies programs in the Conservatorium’s Arts and Cultural Inquiry Unit. In 2006 she received a $10,000 national Carrick Australian Award for University Teaching.
Lecturer
Jennifer Rowley BA GradDipEd MEd GradDipHigherEd PhD UNSW LTCL Trinit RSA Cert TEFLA
Jennifer Rowley, a lecturer at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, has been a teacher educator since 1993 and is committed to quality teaching by encouraging effective teaching, reflective practice and the development of a professional practitioner who understands and caters for individual differences. Dr Rowley’s research interests include teacher education, gifted education, teacher’s professional learning, teaching and learning in higher education and professional standards for teachers. She has extensive experience in planning and implementing professional development training programs tailored to a range of workplaces. Rowley has been a teacher, curriculum designer and developer and is experienced in the theory and practice of how adults learn.
Part-time Staff
Daniel Kark, BA (Hons), BCom, MIntSocDev, UNSW
Daniel Kark is in the final stages of a PhD in the School of History at the University of New South Wales. His research interests include British colonial and African history and his PhD looks at the creation of British Community Development and Mass Education policies in British Central Africa during the late-colonial period. He recently returned from a year in Malawi and South Africa where he was conducting research and interviews for his thesis.
As well as tutoring in the Historical and Cultural Studies program, Daniel also teaches African politics and history at Macquarie University and is Assistant Head of Goldstein College, UNSW. Previous degrees include a Bachelors in History and Economics, and a Masters in Development Studies. He was once a very bad violinist, but now limits his musical pursuits to the thoroughly enjoyable task of tutoring Historical and Cultural Studies at the Conservatorium.
Nadine Kavanagh, lic. phil. University of Zurich
Nadine Kavanagh tutors within Historical and Cultural Studies at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. She recently submitted her PhD thesis on the role of encyclopaedias in the Australian nation building process. Her PhD project won the support of grants from the ‘Forschungskredit’ of the University of Zurich and the ‘Salomon David Steinberg-Stipendien-Stiftung’, Zurich. Her Lizentiat thesis (equivalent to an MA) was on the subject of Swedish travelogues from Germany during the First World War.
As both her Lizentiat and her PhD thesis show, Kavanagh is particularly interested in transnational ideas and movements, as well as questions of identity and nation building. Kavanagh is also a research assistant at the University of New South Wales. She speaks German, English, Swedish, French and Italian.
Ross Gilbert, BA NE MEd PhD Ill
Ross Gilbert is a Lecturer in Education at Sydney Conservatorium of Music. He joined the faculty in 1973 after teaching in primary schools for twelve year. He taught in this position, in the areas of curriculum theory and classroom management until retirement from full time teaching in 2004 and, at that time, held the positions of Practicum Co-ordinator, Chair of General Studies and Associate Dean Teaching and Learning. Gilbert currently teaches the units of study entitled Education 4: Studies in Teaching and Education 6: Curriculum Theory and Design.
He has a Bachelor of Arts from the University of New England, a Master of Education from the University of Sydney and a PhD from the University of Illinois. He has published in the areas of classroom interaction and classroom management.
Margie McCrae, MCreativeArts Woll
Margie McCrae is an actor, director and teacher who has worked extensively in theatre. She lectures in the Arts and Cultural Inquiry Unit at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music and is also the Artistic Director of Marian Street Theatre for Young People in Killara, a position she’s held since 1995.
McCrae received a Master of Creative Arts in Theatre from Wollongong University in 1997. Her degree investigated dramaturgical support in the development of the playwriting process. She has taught for The Arts Council of NSW, The Workers Education Association and Sydney Community College, Wollongong University, TAFE Colleges and for the Department of Corrective Services where she taught men in intensive courses for the Drug and Alcohol Program resulting in group-devised performances.
McCrae has been acting for over twenty years with credits in theatre that range from Shakespeare to new Australian plays, pub comedy and theatre for young people, touring with many well-known productions throughout NSW, Queensland and Victoria. She has also appeared in television drama, comedy, sitcoms and children's TV and in feature films, short films and projects for the Australian Film, Television and Radio School.