 We'll move on to our next session today, which will be run by Dr. Charlene LaRoy Dyer and she'll be speaking on the topic of equity and access towards understandings of disadvantage in higher education. Charlene is a saltwater woman with family ties to the Darug, Awabakal, Garagal and Burud Yuri nations. Charlene is the president of the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Postgraduate Association and an executive member and board member of the Australian Postgraduate Association. Charlene is a full-time academic at the University of Queensland Business School where she is a senior lecturer in employment relations and associate director of PRME Indigenous. As an Aboriginal activist, student leader and unionist, Charlene is passionate about improving the standard of education, the inclusivity and access at universities for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students and for those from equity groups. I believe Charlene is also joined by two very special guests today. Jeremy Heathcoe is a proud Aboriginal man from the Awabakal Nation who has strong connections to the local area in Sydney. He is employed at the University of Sydney in a role that works on internal and external Indigenous agenda with medicine and health. Jeremy is an active member of the NTEU where he is the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander representative at the University. He is currently studying suicideology at Griffin University which links to the work he does within the Aboriginal community, particularly around his role as deputy chairman of the Barna Aboriginal Men's Group. Anissa Jones is a boo-boo, the wrong girl, the wrong woman from the Hawkesbury River which ties to the Warmaloo clan from Prospect Hill. She has taught in schools and vocational institutions for over 20 years. Anissa has a passion for First Nations pedagogy and its implementations in the school system as a way of giving Aboriginal students a sense of identity which can be lost in the curriculum and day-to-day musings of school life. Currently Anissa is completing the Masters of Indigenous Languages Education at the University of Sydney to support Dharug Dhalan revitalisation. Thank you so much for joining us and all your Charlene. Oh hi everyone, I'm Charlene, good Dharug, a what-the-call graduate woman from New South Wales. Currently a senior lecturer in employment relations at the University of Queensland. So shall I just keep talking? Our session today is on access, what is it on? Sorry, I've just closed what I'm supposed to be talking about. Access and inclusivity in universities and we have some panellists. So we have Jeremy, do you want to say hi Jeremy? Hi everyone, yeah I'm Jeremy, I'm here at University of Sydney. I'm a traditional Warbuckle man as well. I live on the land of environmental people but paramount. And we have Tracy. Hi, I'm a Warbuckle Guaigle woman living on a Warbuckle country proudly and advocating for our mobs. I'm also a 56-year-old undergraduate law student. Thank you to Charlene and I will have a joint, studying a joint degree of Global Indigenous Studies. Okay, thanks Trace. I have two other panellists, I'm not sure if they're here yet. Taylor, who is actually in court and said that she will be out in time to Zoom and Anissa, Jones, who maybe just be a little bit late. No, no, I'm here, I've already done my intro, I was like running it. Yeah guys, sorry. Anissa do you want to just introduce yourself? Oh I already did, I did. I was going to take over at one point. Oh that's all right, you could take over. Sorry. Taylor might be late and as soon as I see her on the screen we'll grab her but we might just get into it. I did send people a copy of the questions that I was going to talk about today. Hopefully everyone got those right at the last minute and I'm really sorry it was the last minute. I've been on holidays and I actually went down back home to Newcastle for my sister's wedding and I gave the ride away and so I've just been in a bit of a holiday mode and got back today and yeah just catching up. So my first question to our students is when you think about access and inclusivity in universities, what does that actually mean for you? So might start with you Jeremy, if that's okay. Hello Probs. Yes, like I said before in the introduction I'm doing suicideology, I'm doing it online so it's not like my usual degrees that I've done before face-to-face but it's really great that it hasn't been a place where it actually is inclusive and they're keeping touch with me all the time but personally working at university I think inclusivity is so important especially for our First Nations people. I work in a very unique role in medicine health, my role is engagement with staff, students and community internally and externally so I get to work with staff and make sure they understand our cultural issues. I've worked on a faculty strategy we've got here in our faculty, at University of Sydney medicine health is probably the largest, well it is the largest faculty, it's almost half the university. We've actually got a strategy in place that includes Indigenous-known being and doing so that's embedded within the work we're doing. So I get to work with a lot of staff and educate them about different things. Also make sure that we promote the opportunities for our students and when they're here there's safe space and be here, coffee safe. It's one of the big things that I've been pushing, I worked in this sector for the last 12 years, it's something I've been pushing for that long. Making sure that it includes the space and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island people will be able to come here and be themselves and be empowered. It's something that I've seen as a failure in this sector unfortunately. I think it's something that all universities should be working on is making sure that when someone does come here from an Aboriginal Torres Strait Island back road, or any other background mind you, it's a safe place to come. There include discussions especially with our first-generation people, there's actually a voice for us as well. I think that's one of the key things that I think we've seen here in my faculty at least is Aboriginal people having a voice and being involved in making sure that what's been taught to our students both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal aligns to the cultural needs because as people know in medicine health whatever job you go in you're going to meet the Aboriginal person. So if you can understand our history, our background, the different aspects of what we do the knowing, being and doing, I think that's really key. I used to work in inclusion as well at this university and it's something that I pushed there with other areas as well with the cultural, the cold areas, disability inclusion as well. All those areas are the same issues. If we can make sure it's inclusive and we actually really do include people, not just lip service, actually have things in the right way. I think that's how we make a difference. We've actually increasing more students coming here from different backgrounds and also staying here. Retention is one of those key things. If it's not a safe place, I'll go to different universities, I'll quit university altogether. I think that's something I think all of us across the sector need to look at. So that's why I see this as inclusivity in this university or any other sector in general. Thanks, Jeremy. Anisa? Well, when I looked at that question, I had flashbacks to my own time as a first year uni student. That was a while ago. So, yeah, no, it was. And I was doing my Bachelor of Education, so education trained. And I had to do an Aboriginal unit. And it was run by a white Dutch man who just happened to be friends with mob. I know Shelly's just like, oh my God, this was in the 90s before everyone got slightly more woke than they are now. But, you know, I took that and I ended up pretty much taking over the class because I was the only Aboriginal student in the room. And a lot of it was put on my shoulders. And you do see that with a lot of Aboriginal students and teaching staff at university level, at TAFE, at schools, you name it, it's very much a, oh, you're the, you know, front of all knowledge. I like to say the Aboriginal whisperer. And, you know, and I say that tongue in cheek because that's not our role. And it actually puts a lot of stresses on community, particularly when that happens. And, you know, I loved my teaching course. Don't get me wrong. I had a ball. I sadly caught the lob bug with university and ended up doing a couple of more quolls of data masters. I'm a second master now. I'm looking at a PhD. I don't know why people are telling me I'm insane. But, you know, different universities, I've been to a few. I've found that in the last 20 years of undertaking training, it's been very different. So in the 90s, there was, when I was at uni of Canberra, there was an Aboriginal centre. It was in the law building, but it was very small and very underfunded. And now it's like this gig was bang, amazing thing. And at Sydney, they've got the Gadigal centre, you know, going in there, you actually do feel very safe walking in those doors. Down the road is Eora campus for TAFE. And I can go there and no issues. Like I, it's nice to be surrounded by like-minded individuals, whether they're, you know, the same race as you or if they are, you know, in the same course as you. I think it's just a place to be safe. Like for me, it's, and I teach diploma Aboriginal studies now, and I teach it online, we won't go there. But it's online and the majority of the students are Aboriginal. So it's a good safe space to be where we can have a yarn, we, you know, a lot of them have graduated. It's a safe space. And I think that's the reality that universities and other educational spaces need to have that in the forefront. Because if we can't see us, we can't be us. So if we can't see Aboriginal people finishing year 12 TAFE university, we're not going to get to, you know, become candidates. Like I've got so many cousins that have now got PhDs and slightly jealous. But I also think, when am I going to find the time to do it? But I want to do it, not just for my community, but I want to do it for myself. And, you know, the, what I've seen from the university sector and their inclusivity is what makes me think which university I may choose to do my PhD with. So I'm really mindful of that. And I think a lot of them do look at that. And I think, you know, inclusivity, it's another issue is, you know, well, I'm not smart enough to get into uni. And that's the other issue that needs to be addressed. Because we're not all numbers, everyone has lived experiences that are different. And I didn't do so well in my ATAR. And I'm on my second master's. So it's really not an indicator of your ability to do well at tertiary level. It's about who you are, who supports you, your stubbornness, as I've been told, to prove people wrong and to do, follow your heart and your passion. And we shouldn't be stopped because of a number, either. Or I believe that we're too dumb to do it. And that's the biggest, biggest thing for me. So. Thanks, Anissa. Now, no, Tracy's got some really good stories around me. So Tracy, do you want to talk? So just for people, you probably already told you, but I actually taught Tracy. I think I'll save some of that for question to Charling. But yeah, I have got my notes to address those issues. And I'm like, Charling can tell you how true they are. But just on question one, you know, everything that Jeremy and Anissa has said directly or indirectly about, you know, belonging, safety, all those sorts of things are true and current and in 2022. But they were no different back when I finished school in the 19, you know, late 1970s. I just want to go back a couple of decades because I can say to you that, you know, when I finished school, I was a media stereotypical Aboriginal Black kid living in the inner city suburbs of Sydney. Then we moved out to the western suburbs at Parramatta, where I finished, well, I didn't actually finish school. My mother was stolen generation. She was found herself through no fault of her own, a single mum with two children back in the 70s. And there was no welfare back in them days. Centrelink didn't evolve until 1974. So there was no single mum's pension. And my mum was not even old enough to work in pubs and clubs because back then you had to be 21. So she lied about her age. We moved every six months because my mum was scared welfare would take us from her like she was taken from her mum. So when I turned 14, of course, I had to leave school to get a job, unqualified, uneducated, on everything to help my mum pay the rent and put food in our mouth. Now, I wasn't in a remote Aboriginal community as one might think of my story. I was living in downtown Parramatta in New South Wales. So that just goes to show that it wasn't that long ago that the expectations of us and the stereotypical reported Aboriginal child lived in. So I didn't have a choice but to leave school. A HSC or a tertiary education for me was not an option. And even if I had tried and we're back talking not long after within 10 years of Charlie Perkins and everyone else going to university, I was deemed not smart enough to go to university. So my whole life I have known that I was smart enough and believed I was intelligent enough to be an undergraduate and to have a bachelor's degree. Something I had never given up on, I had tried over many years to go to take to get some sort of a certificate to say that I was good enough to have an education. I never felt I belonged. I was the only black kid wherever I went. If I couldn't fight with my fists, I couldn't back in them days exist or survive. And I'm also talking about in the school playground, in the tapes at Metta Bank, you know, Granville, I can name a few, right, that I went to, including Newcastle only five years ago, out of and, you know, I was in my 50s up here in Newcastle trying to go to tape and there was and I had similar story. I had a non-indigenous person trying to teach me Indigenous studies because nobody as an Indigenous woman and a senior Indigenous woman took me serious when I spoke. So I believed that to fit in to this world, I needed an education that had a piece of paper to it. So in 2018, Charles, 2019, what are we now 22 for? Four years. So let's go back four years ago, five years ago, I rocked up at a place called Walla Tuka at Newcastle University and I said, can I come here and get an education, stop laughing, Charlotte, without being victimised and being treated with racism? Because I've yet to find a place that I can go and learn and without that happening because there was no safe space for us to get an education. So whilst we are having, you know, a lot of PhD students coming through and I don't know what the stats were. I know a couple of years ago, Anissa might be able to verify, there was only about 400 Indigenous with PhDs. Is that right, Charles? There's about 800 now. 800 now. Well, there you go. That's just in the last couple of years that's doubled. Give me another four years, five years and you can add my name to that list because I ain't dying without one because I wasn't good enough to get married either and I'm not having a miss on my heathstone. But yeah, now there's not many Walla Tukas. I was glad to hear there's Jeremy mentioned about the one in Sydney. They allow, though, these places are not specialised teaching places. We don't get degrees handed to us out of the Kellogg's Corn Flakes box. We actually have to earn and pay hex fees like everybody else. But however, these places allow us a safe space to learn in without those things that inhibit us as such things as inclusivity at university. The only way we get that is by being around our own mobs, feeling safe without being... And when we say safe, we don't mean people coming up to us calling us names. We mean lecturers teaching students 30 odd in a room incorrectly about our mobs and our places and just things like that. And yes, we do have to be the token blacks. We do have to become the educators even though we're the students or the undergrads that are there learning. That just reinforces that we're still not in a safe space in these places. So for me, access and inclusivities in university means that I have to educate lecturers and other students about at the risk of being not expelled. What do you call it when you get kicked out of uni? Kicked out of uni. Yeah, well, you know, that thing that I've had to face a few times for speaking up, but we'll address that in question too, Charlene. So, yeah, you know, at the risk of... And sometimes for us, in that space, emotionally becomes emotionally charged for us because sometimes some of the subjects are so raw to our hearts and our own experiences that it evokes emotion in us. And sometimes, you know, it's exhausting trying to have to explain that the system is this way and it's caused us to be... We're not angry blacks. None of us are angry blacks. We're just tired and frustrated and we just want an education. That's me. That's what inclusivity means. Ask someone else, not me. Thanks, Tracy. I just want to add as well, you know, from a staff member's perspective, inclusivity is really important as well. I'm one of only six Aboriginal people to have a PhD in management and business and it's a very lonely place. And I work in a mainstream business school and what I've tried to do is surround myself with other Aboriginal people. So, at University of Queensland, we have now seven Aboriginal academics working in the business school, which is unheard of in any other university around the country, and we have another five or six professional staff. So, it's starting to be a really inclusive environment because it can be very exclusive for those of us who are, you know, with PhDs and working in mainstream schools as opposed to, you know, if we were working in an Aboriginal centre that has courses that run out of it. So, thanks everyone for that. That was great. So, our question number two is access to universities can be difficult for some Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students. Can you please talk about your experience around these? So, I'm going to go again to Jeremy first. Cool. Thanks, Charlie. Yeah, I actually went to Newcastle University by undergraduate area. What I took back then was that little tiny house. It's not like it was there. So, it was very small. It was a great student support there. But growing up, I was the first to finish year 12 in my family, first to go to university. So, I actually wasn't really tanned to look at university back then. I had some great people around me who suggested to go and I'm glad I did because I've done a few degrees since then and are now working in the sector. But it is difficult still for a lot of people. I think, like what Tracy said, sometimes people think they're not worthy to get a university. They're not smart enough and things like that because they didn't get the right HSC marks. I think it's really important that we do make it so there's opportunities for our people to come here as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. I think, and Tracy both mentioned that we don't get things that free. We're here on merit. That's a really key thing. So, when people do come here, it's merit-based. For example, in our faculty, we're trying to increase our numbers. We used to have an Aboriginal support unit within our faculty and they got moved on, unfortunately. A lot of universities do that. They centralise things now and take things out and mess things around when they're working, which is a bit of a shame. But working with students, I'll do a lot of work with the students here. Black and white students and they hear the same thing. There's a lot of issues around racism throughout the university sector. I think everyone here knows that, but people outside wouldn't realise it's still a racist element within our university. Making sure there's actually options there for people to get support is really key. Like Tracy mentioned, having people who are educated actually be able to give training to our students, especially Aboriginal staff like Charlene, as an academic, be able to teach our students is really important. That's something we're trying to boost here as well, trying to increase our staff. We've got one of the highest staff rates at the university, at the University of Sydney, but Percangelo is really low. But if we can increase that and make sure that anyone teaching our subjects, Aboriginal focus subjects from our mob, it's going to help not only increase the satisfaction and equality of our teaching, especially for the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, but also educate the non-indigenous people and raise that. I think it's really important that we do have something in place where we can embed that because it's still hard. Some universities do programs to get people in. I got in on my ATAR at Newcastle, but some of my friends went through the one-year prep course, which is great. It gives them experience. We don't do that here at Sydney, unfortunately. My last university in New South, New South Wales Journey, we did a pre-program. You get through that straight to university. Merritt Basics course. Now I was going to do six or seven faculties, which is great. It's something we're trying to look at doing here because if you get more opportunities, people come in. It's great. We do a community-orientated course here, which is really great in public health, but I saw some of the students two days ago when I was out on campus and there's a range of their professionals, the community leaders and community members. So it gives them opportunities to get into university and actually move on to another degree, hopefully, down the track. But if we can make sure that, like I said, for a safe place, we can actually focus on our issues across the sector. If every university can do that, we're going to see more people coming. More opportunities for our mob to come here as well. Which university students go to? I'd love to see more of our people actually studying because, like Shelley said, there's only six in business, five now because one passed away for a couple years ago, but he's a good friend of mine as well. So there's not many in business doing that. So I encourage more of our mob to actually look at those undergrad and postgrad qualifications because opportunities are there. We just want to make sure that the community know about that and also make sure the community are welcome to come to university. I still see a lot of people in Redfern who are too scared to walk through university and I don't think they're allowed to. So making those opportunities out there is really, really important. Absolutely. Thanks, Jeremy. And Nisa, I know that you have a lot to say on this one. You're on me, Kaz. You know me so well. So so being in a space where education obviously little ones all the way to adults, that's my experience preschool all the way to year 12 and then adults. I've taught at primary schools, high schools, TAFE and university. So I was teaching at Macquarie last year for the DiRignore unit. And that was great. It was great. It was, you know, amazing to do that. And I was co-teaching with someone who has a TAE, so a Cert Foreign Training and Assessment, but no higher qualifications than that. And it was disheartening for me because the knowledge that she was bringing to the table, you know, you know, it's okay to do this, but you've got to have these calls. And I think that's what bogs us down with a lot of things. We see that in TAFE with even trying to get language access to universities is similar. Like I would love to teach teachers in the education section of a uni. And I do outside of it, you know, like how to actually teach Aboriginal people and our needs. And, you know, it's kind of interesting. People go, oh, oh, I didn't get that at uni. And that's, that's where it starts is that education space of it's got to be embedded throughout our university education courses first. Because if we don't do that, we're having that cycle continue. And I've had people come to me in the last five years of they've just graduated and they go, oh, I didn't know about that. We did this for a semester and that was it. And, you know, I think we've moved past it being a minor thing. You know, and that's really, that can be disheartening and having to tell people you can still go to university. And they're like, no, no, I'm not smart enough. And I go, what a load of crap. And sorry, I said crap, I was going to say something else, but crap was a better word. You know, because I'm training, I'm mentoring people in their TAFE at the moment that Aboriginal and that's, and I mean, it's a cert for which is, you know, a QF level as Charlene was in this meeting before is considerably lower than a bachelor and a master's and so on. And they're thinking they're stupid. And it's not the course. It's not them that's stupid. It's the way the courses are written. They really aren't written for Aboriginal people. And they really don't include our ways of knowing being and doing. I've got community members who are speaking language, but because they don't have the piece of paper, which is what Tracy said, they can't deliver languages. We've got five Aboriginal language teachers at TAFE across the state of New South Wales. I will be the sixth one next year. That is it. And New South Wales ain't a small state. I mean, I've lived in the ACT. That's tiny. But it hinders us in doing this. And, you know, I would love to do my PhD, but I don't know if my prior work and all my other research and everything else I've done, you know, is there a way to go that way and be accredited for the work I've already done without having to jump through 20 billion hoops and give up five years of my life. But it also is off-putting. And, you know, I'm always building my students up. I've got someone who now wants to be a teacher for one of my diploma classes. And I'm like, yes, because we need, we need more. But the way I teach is not the way that other people teach because I do that holistic approach. And, you know, I understand it. I get it. And, you know, I think we over, we over call it, we'll not even quantify, but we over qualify the roles. Teaching is naturally what we used to do. So we're an oral-based language. We didn't have reading and writing. We had an amazing memory of being able to retain copious amounts of information. That, to me, is high level of intelligence. But when you look at the Western system, it requires a piece of paper. I think there needs to be a, well, to quote Martin Nakata, there needs to be a cultural interface here happening where the knowledge that we have is equivalent, if not more, to the requirements. And that's where we will see that wall breaking down. Because there's only so much, you know, some of us can do without getting real tired and sick and stressed out. And, you know, I'd love to see a lot more black fellas in education at university level. Take, you name it, I keep asking. You know, I think it needs to be a safe space, but it also needs to recognize our skill sets that aren't always about writing. So, you know, it's not always about reading. It's not always about any of those. We are listening, oral based languages. You know, we're very visual type people in terms of we used symbolism. We used yarning and stories. You know, that was our way of learning. And when you look at the fact that we were the first bakers, the first agriculturalists, the first agriculturalists, you know, all of these amazing things, we knew not to intermarry before science was coined. You know, that sort of stuff is cutting edge understanding without half the tools that we have today. To identify that, if you do intermarry, you're going to have some genetic issues. You know, so there's all these great things that we have been able to do in the past. But the last 200 years of us looking like the, you know, it's what Darwin's paternalistic sort of mentality of, you know, all the Aboriginal people, so they've got a small brain ergo, they're dumb. Einstein had a small brain just saying he was a genius. So, you know, that belief that we are dumb is coined because we didn't read and write, not because we didn't know what we were doing, but it was against, we were measured against the British system of education and we still are. So that's why I think our access has been difficult. And, you know, there are ways to show our understanding without having to write a 4,000 word essay, which I've had to do. So, for one of my masters, but, you know, those sorts of things, there's other ways to do it. And we need to find that work around because it's the knowledge that and the skill that the person can give. It's not about how well they can write something. And I think we really need to remove ourselves. It's the same with the, you know, HSC and ANTIR and all that sort of stuff. You know, we've got the big picture program where kids are coming into university based on projects that they've done in areas of relevance and they are getting a guernsey into university and not all unis are doing it, but that's the way to get around that HSC. My youngest was early entry into uni and asked to teachers, why am I doing HSC? And why am I doing the exams then if I'm early entry? You know, so, and I said the same thing when I was younger. Why am I doing this exam? Because, you know, it had to write an essay and do some questions. So, I think it really takes away from our ability to show who we are and what we can do and have respect for us as Aboriginal people and Torres Strait Islander people. If there's anyone out there that is Torres Strait Islander, we're more than what the perception has been for the last 230 plus years. And we are amazing. We really are amazing people. And as you can see, there are a lot of things that have been changed on country since, you know, 1788. And now we're sort of, you know, climate change, you know, and all that sort of thing, cop and that because we didn't do what happens and flooding and everything else. So, our knowledge was actually quite important and respectful and holistic. And now it's just, oh, you've got to get a number. And I think that's really disappointing to a lot of mob. And that's what puts them off is I can't compare because I'm not good enough. Well, they are good enough. It's just a different way. So, different way of learning. And that should be a count. And we do that for students with dyslexia. We do that for students with other disabilities. We don't do it for Aboriginal people. And that's the major issue. I've got a staff, a colleague who's English is his fifth language. He speaks, he's from Anangu. He speaks four languages before English. And he's an amazing teacher. Can he go to university right now and do a Bachelor of Adult Ed? No, because he has to do all this writing as opposed to the skill sets. He's amazing as a teacher. I've done it for 20 years. I've never come across someone who is just that good. And, you know, that to me says, why aren't we just giving him that piece of paper then? Because he's obviously got the skills and the talent. And you learn more in practice than you do in a lecture hall. Just saying, sorry, Charlotte. But it's true. It's a practical application of your skill set. So if you don't do that, you know, that's the best way to demonstrate your understanding. But I'm going to stop now because I could go down that rabbit hole forever. And as Charlene said, I had a lot to say. And now the next person has a lot to say on this, Tracy. So just before you do, Tracy and I both came through alternate pathways into university. And then I went on to teach the alternate pathway, which is the RPAP program at Newcastle Uni. And I taught in that program for 12 years before I left to go to UQ. So over to you, Tracy. Okay, so I've got two examples and then I'll elaborate a little bit. But being Indigenous, this is the way we explain things. This is the way we ask people to understand how, you know, difficult it is for us. So go back 40 years ago, I'm starting year 10. And I'm in maths. And I still remember my maths teacher and good-looking 25-year-old fellow he was. I got him straight out of uni in year seven. And I had him for four years. And here I am sitting there at the back of the class because that's where we had to sit being black. And he says to me, Tracy, I have been teaching you for four years fractions. And you still can't get it. So I said, did you ever stop to think it's the way you eff and teach it? And I upended the table and I walked down. So of course at lunch, sorry. But if you've been teaching me that same thing for four years and I still haven't got it, well, is it my fault, right? So, and it's okay to laugh because this is true story, right? So over the PA, 1200 kids in the school, Master in Hype, I get called up. And, you know, of course I'm ripped all the way across across the quadrangle ridiculed. So I get up there, Mr. Dudley sitting there with the head of maths, Mr. Bren. Here, listen, 42 years later, I still remember their names, right? So it's quite significant to me. I'm sitting there and he's got an orange. And he goes, I don't know why you can't understand fractions. I said, as I said, he said it's my fault. But anyway, he's got an orange and he peels it. He goes, what's this? And I sort of roll my eyes and go, it's an orange. And he goes, yeah, but it's a whole orange, isn't it? And I said, if you say so, he breaks the orange in half. And he says to me, now what have I got? I said a broken freaking orange. He said, no, I've got two halves of an orange. Word for word verbatim. This is the story, right? I've been telling it for 40 odd years. So he puts the two halves of the orange back together. And he says, now what have I got? I said a superglue orange because I didn't know what he wanted me to say, right? So he goes, now I've got a whole orange. So two halves make one whole. I said, okay, I'll play. Then he breaks the two halves into quarters. And he says to me, what have I got now? And I've got this bloke, please. He's like, he's local, this bloke, right? So I said, listen, get to the point. What you're trying to say to me? He said, this is fractions. Two quarters make a half, two halves make a whole. He said, that's fractions. I said, why don't you bring me half an orange? Four years ago, you dumb bastard, knowledge. So excuse my language. That's the story that tells. But if that's what it takes to teach an Aboriginal person the simple basics of fractions, what's it going to hurt you to bring the damn orange? It's nothing. It's simple. But if we can't understand what's on the blackboard and the way it's written, bring the damn orange. Now fast forward, 40 years, I'm in Charlene's lecture. She's our dad now. I've just been accepted into university into the pub program. I'm going to university. I'm going to learn, I'm going to learn how to be a university student. So they're very, and I'm disabled as well. Not that that's an issue, but it doesn't hold me back. So I've rocked up in our very first lecture at university and Charlene's teaching it. So I'm sitting there for the whole two hours. I'm taking it all in. I'm writing notes, you know, Charlene's talking. I'm like, sitting up the back like a good little black kid. Mind you, they were all black kids in that room, but I was sitting up the back block, I was used to. And I'm taking all these notes. And at the end of the two hours, Charlene says to me, or to everyone, sorry, in the lecture hall of 200 things. Now, is there any questions? So I sat back because I wanted to see what all the kids asked, so I didn't sound dumb, right? So nobody asked no questions. And I'm like, oh, these little smarty, me right? So I thought, okay, I got asked. So I put my hand up and Charlene looks right up the back because she's down the front. And she goes, yes, Tracy. And I said, because the Charlene said all lecture, open a folder for this and a sub folder for that, you know, another folder for this and another folder for that. So she says, yes, Tracy, what's your question? I said, how many folders I've got to go and buy because I couldn't keep up with the count. I didn't know you had to do all this on a laptop, like nobody told me that. She just sent folders. Yeah, talk about dumb, right? So here's the thing. It is difficult for an Indigenous student, whether they be 18 or 58, going to you, you don't need to hide your head, no more Charles, it's over. You don't teach me no more, right? You've got to feel sorry for the law lecturers at New Spacey. Anyway, but I'll get to that in question three. But yeah, it is difficult for us. And to feel, you know, to talk about our experiences at university is hard. I'd rather give you the funny stories which still depict funny, but true stories which do depict our difficulties. Just our basic and keep laughing. And it's because it's true, every word of it. Mr. Dudley still remembers me. I went to the 30 year reunion not so long ago, or might have been 10 years ago, but anyway, you know what I'm saying. And yeah, so I'd rather give you the funny stories that depict us as a student at university. And you know, here's a qualified Indigenous teacher. Well, clearly it must have been me this time because everybody else in the room understood what what Charlene was saying about the folders, right? But she'll also tell you the following week when I arrived at Treasury Studies class that she was teaching, I did have the darn pink folder just because I didn't know how to use the lap time. And I also had at the same time, the wonderful Michelle Bobble teaching me professional practice, as in, you know, with an Indigenous side of it. And I was sitting in the classroom, all Indigenous kids in there, but I still up the back in the back row. And because I didn't want to, you know, everybody behind me thinking of looking at me the dumb kid in the class. And, you know, Michelle's like, you know, just write down, you know, in word blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So everybody's writing, everybody taking notes, and I'm sitting there and I'm thinking, what word does she want me to write? You remember this one? Well, the whole class just went silent. There was no tap, tap, tap on the keyboard or anything else. And Michelle looked at me and she goes, ah, you ought to lap top. I said, yeah, she goes, open it. I thought it was just for me to look cool. You know, so in the, I know it's hard to believe I'm an undergraduate doing a few degrees at the moment. I get it because four years ago, I didn't know what a word document was. But we get there. Don't give up on us as students because just because we're black, I know, I know there's not that many of us, but there are more and more people my age seeking that education we never got in the 60s and the 70s. You know, my mum never got passed. We called it first form back in the days, year seven. She had to repeat it five times because she was in a Catholic orphanage going to the Catholic school, you know, and by their standards, she wasn't good enough to graduate. But, you know, I'll finish off by saying this, when I graduated and Charlene was there, her and the dean stand up on the stage trying to choke me afterwards because I was such a pain in the arse to change. And we got photos to prove it. But after all of that, I went to my mum because my mum was there and on the eldest, you know, in our family. And I'm not the first to go to university in our family because my children went before me to university, except the youngest she's going to there now. But I went to my mum and I said to my mum, mum, like, are you proud of me? I've actually earned this degree in Open Foundations. It's a university certificate. Are you proud of me? And my mum said, yeah, but you had to wait till I had one foot in a bloody grave. You couldn't have done it any earlier, I'm thinking just, you know, this is our life, you know. We deserve to be there. I'm so proud now. And my son's just finished a master's degree in business, sorry, in commerce and economics. You know, he's at the university in Toowoomba there. And he's the only black kid there. Like the Indigenous unit at Toowoomba, I think it's southern eastern, is it? Charlene, what's that? University of Southern Queensland. USQ or something? Yeah. And they ask him questions, you know, they're about, you know, studying as, and this man is 34 my son yesterday. He's married, he works full-time in the Treasury Department of the Police Bank, you know, doing all sorts of amazing things. And, you know, he's the only black fella there. And, you know, oh, there she goes, thanks, Charles, you found it. Everybody have a giggle. That's the day I graduated and got my certificate to go. And so it took Charlene's belief in me, not giving up on me being the most uninformed university student there was. I didn't even know how to use a laptop or a Word document or what a folder was in a laptop. I just, as I said, I just bought it to be cool like I'm wrong, don't know how to use it. So, you know, and it was Charlene chipping away at me that whole year in 2018, 2019. And the many, many times I broke down and cried and said, I don't know why I thought I could do this. I'm too dumb for this, because society had told me my whole life as a black fella, I was dumb, I was stupid, I didn't belong, I didn't fit in. And my whole life I've been an activist and a fighter and on the front line fighting for the rights of our people, never been taken serious. I'd run up to the Supreme Court until the judgey was wrong and how to handle things with a black fella. And I still do it today, you know. But I was never ever taken seriously or respected from my knowledge on how to solve a situation with a middle-aged criminal. That's why I went to court. But when I've got coroners ringing me regularly to resolve issues with deaths in custody and things like that, and you know, why do I have those expertise, but I don't have that piece of paper to be respected with the knowledge that I have. So, all I can say is that our experiences, whilst you need to everybody else in amongst our mobs, they're very similar in a lot of ways, a lot of stories. And I just want to say before, thanks for listening to us and thanks for being on here today, because this is what is actually inclusiveness is all about. This is it here, right here, right now. So, right today, as I'm sure all of you guys are in Adelaide, at a university or around Australia, wherever you are, this is what it's about, you know, for all of us. Because our history is your history too. Thanks, Charles. Thanks, Jace. And I just want to add a little bit, I remember, and I used to say that every beginning of every single year at your pug, coming to university is not about being smart or how smart you are. It's how you actually apply yourself and how much you want to learn and get to the end. Because I mean, you know, similar experience to Trace, I'm slightly older than Trace, but you know, we've been downtrodden all of our lives and told us we were stupid and wouldn't amount to anything. And I went back to my school reunion recently and waved my PhD in front of my maths teacher's face, who told me I was stupid and dumb and expelled me. And he saw red and I was like, sorry, I stuck it up in. Anyway, we're just going to move on. Sorry, Charles, but didn't you want to thank him for being the prick he was? No, because if he hadn't have put like me and my son, my son was told he'd be lucky to be a garbage collector. And I'm sorry, but that was only 15 years ago, right? And I said to the psychologists back then, what do they earn about a grand a week? And she said, yeah, and I said, come on, mate, we don't need to be, you're going to be right. And we lived. So I think those people that ridiculed us, that said we wouldn't amount to much to, I thank them for saying to us, we're too dumb, we're too stupid. We'd never amount to much or we'd never have an education. Because if it wasn't for those people, we wouldn't be the people that the driven people that we are today to achieve what we want to achieve. Because that little nagging voice in the back of our head saying you can't do it, you're too dumb, is what really inspires us to prove that we're not. And if it wasn't for that, you wouldn't have taken that PHB back to him and waved it in his face. Well done, I would have done the same. Thanks. So I'm going to jump a question now because we are going to be running out of time out with Piper. So I'm going to ask, how can we make our universities more inclusive? So Jeremy. Thanks, Shalene. I want to touch base on what, and this is sort of about Professor Nakata, he's a good friend of mine, by Tracy as a maturation. So giving those opportunities is really important. With him, we worked together at Naurangeli, which is at New South Wales University. It was all about the inclusivity and actually making sure students could listen to it. So sometimes we're in management over there, but sometimes we're sitting with students for an hour, two hours, hearing about what's going on in their lives and what can be done better. But being inclusive is it's really important that everyone comes up on the same level of us because it had people saying, yeah, we'll be inclusive and nothing happens out of it. We need clear plans. We need students bodies to support us. I know the SRC here at University of Sydney, I do a lot of work with them and they're great. So they listen to what we're doing, listening to the issues that are happening. There's a few issues I won't go into today, but that we're working on with the student body to address. I think it's really important that they work with us as staff and students. One of the big things I've found as a student is people just being in touch, not a yarn, offering opportunities out there. Even though, like I said, I'm online in Sydney at Griffon University in Queensland, getting the emails every couple of days, what's going on, what support's out there. It shows to me that they care about our students and they care about making sure it's an inclusive space where we can come together wherever you're undergrad, straight out of school or a student like Tracy. Everyone's equal. That's something that as Aboriginal people we see we're all equal. If I see a student of a yarn, that could be a different faculty, but it's important to understand what they're going through. If they raise something, I can leverage that as well through not only my management role at uni, but my role at the union as well. So I can actually push the agenda there. And we've heard things like racism happening, cultural safety issues, not being given access to material we should have, things like that. But I think if we can make sure that everyone works together and that there's common ground. And I just really believe that what we're doing here is today, listening to stories like Tracy's book, more stories and as well, hearing about that, hearing how things were bad back then, things to improve, which is great, but there's still a lot of improvement done. And if we can work together, Black, White, Brindle, come together and make sure that there is an Aboriginal voice at your university. That is a strong voice. You guys support us as well. That's really, really key because we can't get things done unless the other areas of our community support what we're doing. So if you can come together with whatever university it is, with your student body, Aboriginal liaison officer there, or your students, or your staff body in the Aboriginal units, and work on their things, understand different cultural aspects. I'm not sure if you've got a cultural community at your university and things like that. I know in the education sector that they're using a video we did at UCSD a few years ago when you can't answer that question. I was on part of that, which was really cool. So if you google that, you will see that. A staff and student coming together and people, some of the questions we get asked every day. Sometimes people don't realise we still get asked questions like how black are we and things like that. So understanding that is really key because if you understand that issues we're facing, it makes it a bit easier to work on our gender as well. So I think that's really kicking out being inclusive, work together, work with us. For God I was on mute. Sorry. Thanks, Jeremy. Oh God, I'm going to say the same thing. And just so you know, Jeremy, I show that video to everybody and I've included it in courses that I'm doing curriculum for at TAFE. So look out, you're a star. You know, it's true though. We need to have Aboriginal voices, but we also need for people to listen to those Aboriginal voices. So you know, you can't just keep saying, oh look, this is really not comfortable and then no one's listening to you. And I find that in my role at the moment, I've got Aboriginal students coming to me about issues and I'm a teacher. I'm not the support staff, but because they respect me enough, I will find people to help them. And I think that's what we do. You know, when we want change or when you see something that you know shouldn't be said, you know, just stand up and support the Aboriginal student or staff member because that little thing, whilst it's not tokenistic, it actually you go, oh, thank you. You know, knowing someone's there who will say what you're saying is wrong. And that could be in course content. You know, as I said, when we talked about, I talked about brain size, you know, if you're in the medical and they're like, stupid people have small brains and you blah blah blah, you go, no, you know, it's those sorts of things. And a lot of visuals that you will see about Aboriginal people are usually dark skin, laplab, desert people where that's only a small percentage. There's saltwater, there's plains people, there's, you know, river mob, there's, you know, so many different types, but everyone just assumes because the advertising or something says, and that's where our mind mindset goes. So, you know, are you not Aboriginal? How much are you Aboriginal like all of those things? Watch the video that Jeremy was talking about. It is a really, really good one. And, you know, if you feel that the lecture is not being accurate, have that conversation with your lecturer, if you don't feel comfortable, go and see the Aboriginal support people at your work, you know, in the university, have a conversation with them. They could possibly go and have a conversation. You know, it has to change in a good way. And not, oh, you're an insert exclusive. And off you go. And I think that's the biggest issue is that there's this perception and actual reality. And we need people to speak up and support us. And it shouldn't just always be coming from us. So, if you feel it's wrong, ask, do you think this is wrong as well or whatever, but don't just not do anything. Because I think that's really important that we work together to deal with, to deal with stuff. And, you know, sometimes, you know, books take forever to come out that are actually accurate and things don't change as quick as we would like them to in this day and age. So, feel free to actually do that. All right, I'm done. Thanks, Vanessa. Now, Tracy, we've got two minutes, and I know you're not going to be able to squeeze anything you've got to say into to hang on. Yeah, I can. I'm going to really honour you now, Charlene. So, just because I write, oh, I've lost you as we go on. Can you see me? Yeah, yeah, we can see you. I still can't use a computer and I'm four years into this degree stuff. Anyway, okay, just quickly, you will, especially, let me concentrate on me because I can only speak about me. I can't speak for all mobs. But you will, at best, see one Indigenous student in a degree at a time. That's not inclusiveness because I'm there on my own, right? So, we need more students, whether they're high school students or non-high school students or mature-aged adults, encouraged to go to university because, at best over, when did Sapphire graduate Charlene five years ago, something like that? There has been one Indigenous student, and I'm the fifth Indigenous student to come out of your punk wallet car to go to law school at New Space. That doesn't make it a safe space for me. Okay, especially when I'm an outspoken activist of a black, you know, and I'm studying law, it's not easy. You know, last year I had constitutional law and I had a run-in with the professor and I'd had him three years in a row because I filed that subject, right? But there was 34 students in that room studying. I could not, with good grace, allow him to continue educating people on the 1967 referendum with it out being. I was referred to in that class by many students as they or them. That was not a safe lecture for me to be in. So, obviously, Tracy's going to arc up, but this time I was down the front of the class so everybody had seen me for God, always in the wrong place at the wrong time. And I stood up and I turned around and I pointed at this 20-year-old non-, well, I'm going to say Anglo-Saxon descendant student and I said to her, do not call me, veil them again. I am a Prada-Wabakal Guaigal Elder and you will respect me. I said, I was born before this stupid 1967 referendum and I said, your lecturer wasn't even an itch in his daddies, you know what? I won't repeat the words. So, sometimes we explode up and we're going to arc up, but that kid came to me a week later because I was super embarrassed after all of this and ended up leaving the lecture because I couldn't bring my emotions back into check because it was frustrating as hell the third time I've had this lecturer saying subject everything else, but he was allowing the students in that class that were non-Indigenous and I was non-Indigenous to refer to us as they or them and weren't considered human repeating all the rhetoric from the 1960s. That's got to stop. It has to be corrected in lectures. It has, you have to correct the lecturer, you have to correct the students. That's not tolerable. That young girl came to me, I thought I was going to get expelled from uni again because that's a semester average for me in it, on average I'm up for suspension at least once a semester and not just for those either, but she came to me a week later and I thought, oh god, this girl's walking towards me the shame, right? She come up to thank me and I said, you're thanking me for telling you off and she goes, no, she goes that night I went home and my dad and I had an argument and I said, over what? And she said the 1967 referendum, you know, he's still calling you lot aborigine and I said, well, you know, if it took that, I said, I'm sorry on the delivery that I gave you, but I said, I had just had enough of it and I said, I'm sitting now, I was born before 1967. I said, at her, here we are, you know, nearly 60 years later and I'm still being called they or them and, you know, not considered human back then. And I said, Andy's not telling you the truth about the 1967 referendum either, but I'll tell you something. If you know anyone doing a law degree as a student, a lot of and not just Marbeau, a lot of the High Court cases that have challenged this country's constitution has been because of a black fella. Tasmanian dam, Marbeau, you know, the list just goes on and on and on and on. So we have, you know, just bring us to the table. If you're going to have a panel on indigenous First Nations people of this country's issues, you better bring the black fellas with you because that's where you're going to get the knowledge from. Just in case, just accept us as equal because pretty young. Is that short enough, Charles? Thanks, Tracy. Only four minutes over. You did well. Fucking amazing. You should see my podcast. I want to thank our three students for coming along. And this said Jeremy and Tracy. Can we give them a bit of a round of applause? What a great insight into access and inclusivity for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students. Well, I've got the floor just a quick shout out to Aidan. Hi, Aidan. I haven't seen you in a while. And if there are any Aboriginal postgrad students here who aren't a member, Natsapar is your National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Postgrad Association. I highly recommend that you join your postgrad association. But even for everyone else that's here, get involved in your student politics on campus because it's a really worthwhile thing. For those of us who've sat at a peak level doing this work for years, it's really important that we have amazing students stepping up and doing this work because without our voices, our voices are not heard. And that's really important in our university. We need to have our voices heard. So thank you very much, Piper, for inviting me to do this session. Thank you so much to all of you. Thank you for facilitating, Charlene, and it was just such a joy to listen to that hour. So thank you so much to each of you. Yes, thank you, Charlene, Tracy, and Nisa, Jeremy, and to everyone who contributed and engaged in such an inspiring session. It was so great to hear all your stories and experiences. Thank you so much.