Higher Hopes Podcast

Part-time students make up 31% of all Australian university students, yet university policies and systems remain designed for full-time school-leavers. Associate Professor Kelly Linden shares preliminary findings from her research with almost 1,000 part-time students about their experiences, needs and the policy barriers they face. Ebe and Kelly talk about:

• Research findings on what supports part-time student success, including access to engaging lecturers and clear expectations
• Policy barriers facing part-time students: extensions, scholarships, work-integrated learning and recognition of prior learning
• The impact of caring responsibilities and work commitments on part-time study without inclusive policies
• Inconsistencies in how universities define and support part-time enrolment
• Public transport and taxation policies that disadvantage part-time students
• Universal facility access: how universities could share resources to support distance and part-time learners
• Policy recommendations for better supporting part-time students
• The role of universal design for learning in improving equity

Guest

Associate Professor Kelly Linden is a 2025 Australian Centre for Student Equity and Success (ACSES) Equity Fellow. Over nine years at Charles Sturt University, she's developed award-winning student retention programs and led research into supporting part-time students and students from equity backgrounds.

Links and resources

• Connect with Kelly
• Kelly's research on part-time students

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For students who want to transform their universities. For staff ready to build genuinely inclusive systems. For academics and professionals who think big about what Australian higher education could become.

Ready to raise the bar?

Support the podcast: higherhopespod.com
Follow us: LinkedIn @HigherHopesPod | Instagram @higherhopespod
Full transcript: Available at higherhopespod.com

Produced on the traditional lands of the Ngunnawal and Ngambri peoples.

In this bonus episode, Ebe shares the recording of her November 2025 ADCET webinar on the neurodiversity paradigm, which drew over 500 registrations from across Australia.

The session covers the foundations and principles of the neurodiversity paradigm as articulated by Dr Nick Walker and Sonny Jane Wise, contrasting it with the pathology paradigm that currently dominates university support systems. Ebe explains key concepts including neurodiversity, neurodivergent identity, neuronormativity, biocertification and biopower, and explores what these mean for how universities structure support, assessment and inclusion.

The webinar addresses a growing issue in the sector: institutions adopting neurodiversity language whilst maintaining the same exclusionary practices and diagnostic requirements. Ebe calls this "paradigm washing" and outlines what genuine paradigm shift would require instead.

Practical guidance is offered for disability practitioners, teaching staff and institutional leaders, with particular focus on universal design for learning, harm reduction approaches, epistemic justice, and moving from individual accommodations to systemic change.

The episode includes Q&A with ADCET's Rebecca Morris, addressing questions about assessment design, the role of diagnosis, and how to balance institutional requirements with paradigm shift.

Resources mentioned in episode:

• ADCET webinar recording (video)
• Written Q&A responses from webinar
• History of the paradigm and terminology (including the role of Kassiane Asasumasu in coining 'neurodivergent' and 'neurodivergence')
• Dr Nick Walker's work
• Sonny Jane Wise's work, including the Neurodiversity Smorgasbord

New from Higher Hopes:

• Submit your questions for "Ask me anything about neuro-affirming practice in higher education"
• Higher Hopes on Substack

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Support the show

For students who want to transform their universities. For staff ready to build genuinely inclusive systems. For academics and professionals who think big about what Australian higher education could become.

Ready to raise the bar?

Support the podcast: higherhopespod.com
Follow us: LinkedIn @HigherHopesPod | Instagram @higherhopespod
Full transcript: Available at higherhopespod.com

Produced on the traditional lands of the Ngunnawal and Ngambri peoples.

In this episode, Ebe speaks with Associate Professor Amani Bell (University of Sydney) and Lachlan Sibir (classroom teacher and researcher) about placement equity and placement poverty in Australian higher education.

The conversation explores what placement equity means and why it matters for students from equity-deserving backgrounds. We discuss the strengths and limitations of the Commonwealth Prac Payment, which currently supports students in education, nursing, and social work but excludes many other degree programmes that also require extensive unpaid placements.

The episode examines the intersection of placement poverty with Indigenous student support and other equity initiatives, before diving into practical solutions such as flexible placement models, payment structures based on year level, and strengths-based approaches. We challenge the difference between framing placement support as welfare versus recognising the labour students contribute to organisations, and share insights on designing inclusive and accessible placement experiences that work for all students.

Throughout, the conversation challenges the idea that "this is how it's always been done" and explores concrete ways to make placements equitable without students having to choose between financial survival and completing their degrees.

Episode resources:

• ACSES Fellowship Report: Addressing placement inequities via participatory action research
• The team’s literature review on global approaches to ameliorating placement poverty
• Australian Council of Deans of Health Sciences Report 
• Information about the Commonwealth Prac Payment
• ADCET resources on Inclusive fieldwork, work placements, excursions and practicums
• Paid Placements Aotearoa 
• Students Against Placement Poverty 

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Support the show

For students who want to transform their universities. For staff ready to build genuinely inclusive systems. For academics and professionals who think big about what Australian higher education could become.

Ready to raise the bar?

Support the podcast: higherhopespod.com
Follow us: LinkedIn @HigherHopesPod | Instagram @higherhopespod
Full transcript: Available at higherhopespod.com

Produced on the traditional lands of the Ngunnawal and Ngambri peoples.

In this special episode recorded at UNSW's Diversity Fest, we examine the rising global threats to diversity and inclusion through a disability lens. Join Ebe Ganon in conversation with Professor Jackie Leach Scully (Director, Disability Innovation Institute UNSW), Professor Alistair McEwan (former Disability Royal Commissioner), and Dr Supriya Subramani (University of Sydney) as they unpack everything from Trump's harmful rhetoric to Australia's NDIS challenges, university diversity strategies, and what meaningful allyship actually looks like.

Professor Jackie Leach Scully – Director, Disability Innovation Institute at UNSW. Expert in disability bioethics and the philosophy of embodiment.

Professor Alastair McEwin – Former commissioner on the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability. Former Australian Disability Discrimination Commissioner.

Dr Supriya Subramani – Ethics researcher at the University of Sydney, examining structural injustice, everyday indignities, and the ethics of belonging.

This episode was recorded at UNSW's 2025 Diversity Fest. Special thanks to the Disability Innovation Institute of UNSW for hosting the event and allowing us to share this important conversation.

This episode discusses discrimination, violence against people with disability, ableism, racism, and systemic oppression. References to deaths of people with disability in institutional settings and COVID-19 discrimination.

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Support the show

For students who want to transform their universities. For staff ready to build genuinely inclusive systems. For academics and professionals who think big about what Australian higher education could become.

Ready to raise the bar?

Support the podcast: higherhopespod.com
Follow us: LinkedIn @HigherHopesPod | Instagram @higherhopespod
Full transcript: Available at higherhopespod.com

Produced on the traditional lands of the Ngunnawal and Ngambri peoples.

In this conversation, Ebe sits down with Dr Tracy Woodroffe, a Warumungu Luritja senior lecturer at Charles Darwin University, to talk about what it really means to embed Indigenous knowledge in Australian universities - and why our current approaches keep falling short.

Tracy shares her journey from childhood, to teacher, to academic, explaining why Indigenous perspectives can only be owned and delivered by Indigenous people, and what happens when non-Indigenous academics try to speak for communities they're not part of. They discuss the exhaustion of being tokenised as "the Indigenous expert", and the glass ceilings that persist even in supposedly progressive institutions.

The conversation also explores parallels between Indigenous and disability communities' experiences of tokenism, the difference between genuine partnership and performative allyship, and what it would look like if universities actually structured themselves to centre Indigenous knowledge rather than treating it as a weekly add-on.

Links mentioned:

• Tracy's publications and work in pedagogy, education, and leadership: https://researchers.cdu.edu.au/en/persons/tracy-ann-woodroffe
• Tracy's paper on work-like balance and managing identity: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-981-97-2823-7_6

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Support the show

For students who want to transform their universities. For staff ready to build genuinely inclusive systems. For academics and professionals who think big about what Australian higher education could become.

Ready to raise the bar?

Support the podcast: higherhopespod.com
Follow us: LinkedIn @HigherHopesPod | Instagram @higherhopespod
Full transcript: Available at higherhopespod.com

Produced on the traditional lands of the Ngunnawal and Ngambri peoples.

The Disability Discrimination Act review is happening right now - and it could fundamentally change how disability rights work in Australian universities. But only if the sector actually gets involved.

In this episode, Ebe unpacks four game-changing reforms proposed in the DDA review and why every person in our sector needs to engage with this once-in-a-generation opportunity for change.

What you'll learn

• How universities have historically been absent from disability law reform conversations
• Four key areas of DDA reform that could transform university experiences for staff and students with disability
• How a positive duty framework could incentivise proactive inclusion rather than reactive crisis management
• Why removing 'reasonable' as a qualifier for adjustments matters
• How inherent requirements are being misused as tools of exclusion
• Why disability action plans currently function as "insurance policies" rather than accountability tools
• The cost of inaction - and why proactive inclusion is more efficient than the current system

Get involved in the DDA review

• DDA Review Issues Paper - Attorney-General's Department
• DDA Review consultation page - Australian Human Rights Commission

Background reading

• Why the university sector must engage with the Disability Discrimination Act review - Ebe's original Substack post that sparked this episode
• Disability Standards for Education 2005 - Department of Education

Send us Fan Mail

Support the show

For students who want to transform their universities. For staff ready to build genuinely inclusive systems. For academics and professionals who think big about what Australian higher education could become.

Ready to raise the bar?

Support the podcast: higherhopespod.com
Follow us: LinkedIn @HigherHopesPod | Instagram @higherhopespod
Full transcript: Available at higherhopespod.com

Produced on the traditional lands of the Ngunnawal and Ngambri peoples.

In this inaugural episode, we dive into the power of student collectivism and what it actually takes to build genuine advocacy movements within universities. Host Ebe Ganon sits down with Gemma Lucy Smart, a PhD candidate and seasoned disability advocate who serves as both Disability Equity Officer and HDR Equity Officer for the Sydney University Postgraduate Representative Association, plus represents postgraduate students with disability nationally through the Council of Australian Postgraduate Associations.

Gemma shares her experience as a student advocate at the university and national level: we explore how student advocacy works and what drives student advocates, how to balance working within systems versus challenging them directly, and how student collectivism is a deeply valuable source of community and systemic change on campus.

Key topics

• The power of student collectivism vs individual advocacy
• Strategic decision-making: when to work within systems vs challenge them
• Supporting emerging student leaders and preventing burnout
• Building disability communities across undergraduate and postgraduate spaces
• Language politics in disability advocacy
• Co-production and co-design in university settings
• Universal Design for Learning and AI's role in accessible education
• Assumptions about disabled students in higher education

Connecting with student advocacy and networks

• SUPRA (Sydney University Postgraduate Representative Association): https://supra.net.au/ 
• Students with Disability Leadership Collective: https://studentvoiceaustralasia.com/students-with-disability-leadership-collective 
• Council of Australian Postgraduate Associations: https://www.capa.edu.au/ 
• National Union of Students (NUS): https://nus.asn.au/ 
• National Student Ombudsman: https://www.nso.gov.au/ 

Professional Networks for Staff

• Equity Practitioners in Higher Education Association: https://www.ephea.org/ 
• Australian Tertiary Education Network on Disability (ATEND): https://www.atend.com.au/ 

Universal Design for Learning Resources

• CAST (Centre for Applied Special Technology) UDL Guidelines: https://udlguidelines.cast.org/ 
• Australian Disability Clearinghouse on Education and Training (ADCET): https://www.adcet.edu.au/ 

Gemma’s work:

• Writing in Honi Soit, the University of Sydney student paper: https://honisoit.com/author/gemma-lucy-smart/
• Gemma's research: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3736-5850 

Send us Fan Mail

Support the show

For students who want to transform their universities. For staff ready to build genuinely inclusive systems. For academics and professionals who think big about what Australian higher education could become.

Ready to raise the bar?

Support the podcast: higherhopespod.com
Follow us: LinkedIn @HigherHopesPod | Instagram @higherhopespod
Full transcript: Available at higherhopespod.com

Produced on the traditional lands of the Ngunnawal and Ngambri peoples.

Welcome to Higher Hopes, the podcast raising the bar for Australian universities. In this trailer episode, host Ebe Ganon introduces a new kind of conversation about systemic change in higher education - one that genuinely centres student voices, lived experience, and solutions to move our sector forward.

Tired of surface-level solutions and feel-good initiatives that don't actually shift the dial? Same. This podcast brings together students, advocates, academics, and progressive leaders for bold conversations about what's possible when universities actually live up to their potential.

From student leadership and governance reform to universal design for learning and genuine First Nations allyship, we're exploring how universities can serve staff and students from traditionally underserved backgrounds - and charting the path to get there.

No institutional BS allowed. We're reimagining higher education or we're not talking at all.

Send us Fan Mail

Support the show

For students who want to transform their universities. For staff ready to build genuinely inclusive systems. For academics and professionals who think big about what Australian higher education could become.

Ready to raise the bar?

Support the podcast: higherhopespod.com
Follow us: LinkedIn @HigherHopesPod | Instagram @higherhopespod
Full transcript: Available at higherhopespod.com

Produced on the traditional lands of the Ngunnawal and Ngambri peoples.