ADCET listeners are in for a treat with this fourth podcast produced in association with the National Centre for Student Equity in Higher Education (NCSEHE). 

Dr Lin Martin recently completed a five-year term as a TEQSA Commissioner, having previously held leadership roles at Flinders University, the University of South Australia, the University of New South Wales, the Higher Education Council, the University of Melbourne, Deakin University, and RMIT University. 

Dr Lin Martin reflects on a career spanning the transition from a research higher degree student in the early 1970s to a brilliant career in higher education leadership, administration and regulation.

Dr Martin’s contributions to student equity are synonymous with the ‘Martin Indicators’ which have defined how the sector has tracked equity group access, participation, success and retention for over three decades. Lin speaks frankly about the motivations behind the Indicator project, and hard fought gains the Martin Indicators represent, and which staff working in the sector may now take for granted. 

Dr Martin is gracious in recognising the mentors who nurtured her career, and was more than generous in sharing her knowledge and experiences of Australian higher education. The conversation concludes with a powerful statement about the transformative power of education.

Links to reports and publications referenced during the conversation include:

A Fair Chance For All Department of Employment, Education and Training 1990

Performance indicators in higher education: report of a trial evaluation study (Linke report) Department of Employment, Education and Training 1990

Equity and General Performance Indicators in Higher Education Lin Martin 1994

Equality, diversity and excellence: advancing the national higher education equity framework Higher Education Council 1996

Framing the framework: the origins of 'A fair chance for all' Lin Martin 2016

Characteristics of Australian higher education providers and their relation to first-year student attrition TEQSA 2017

Lin’s story is also told in a chapter The History of the Modern Australian University.