Having just celebrated 12 months since commencing the Building Connections ARC project, we're pleased to launch the Schools as Community Hubs International Conference: to be held on December 3-4 as a online symposium. This event will feature academic papers (presentations) from around Australia and North America and a full written proceedings will be compiled. Registrations to attend are now open. Please click the banner above for more information. We hope you can join us for this unique conference!

We are also thrilled to announce Hayley Paproth and Rob Polglase have joined the Building Connections project as PhD candidates. Both come with a wealth of highly relevant experience. We welcome them to the research team, which now has a full contingent of researchers. You can read more about their backgrounds and research projects below. Enjoy.

Dr Benjamin Cleveland, Lead Chief Investigator.

Hayley joins the Building Connections team as a PhD candidate in the Melbourne Graduate School of Education at The University of Melbourne. Hayley will be evaluating the social impact of community hub schools, seeking to identify cases of improved social outcomes due to such schools, and the factors that lead to this success. She will also investigate ways to support community hub schools to conduct their own monitoring and evaluation. 

Hayley holds a Bachelor of Engineering, a Bachelor of Science, a Masters of Teaching, a Masters of Evaluation and has over 7 years’ experience as a teacher and leader in Victorian schools. She has also been involved in diverse evaluation projects, including managing large-scale projects being conducted for the Victorian Department of Education and Training, as part of her work with the Centre for Program Evaluation at the University of Melbourne. 

Rob joins the Building Connections team as a PhD candidate with the Centre for Urban Research at RMIT University. Rob is fulfilling a long-held dream to contribute to the evidence-base and influence policy settings connected to the planning, design and delivery of learning and community sites; thereby supporting flourishing communities. His PhD research will look at evaluating policy-planning-design-governance settings.

Rob's experience includes education, health, community sectors, commercial, multi-residential, public realm, transport, urban renewal and land development programs. These projects have incorporated urban policy development, strategic planning, funding submissions, setting site planning and development vision, concept to final agreed design, contract procurement to delivery with advocacy for clients, stakeholders, communities, and all levels of government. Rob has participated in industry forums and academic teaching throughout his career. His recent teaching focus has included affordable, socially inclusive design for education, community health and connected neighbourhoods. 

Laurence Robinson is a Director at Brand Architects in Melbourne. Laurence and his firm bring extensive experience and knowledge through their work in designing schools that provide an integrated community service, such as Doveton College in outer Melbourne.  Brand Architects joined the project as a Partner Investigator in November 2019, driven by their desire to contribute to the broader understanding about the potential for integrated community services. The practice is passionate about the contribution that innovative design and shared policy visions can make to improving outcomes for communities and believes Building Connections' research will be a driver for further developments in this area.

Building Connections: Schools as Community Hubs
Learning Environments Applied Research Network (LEaRN)
The University of Melbourne
VIC 3010 Australia

sites.research.unimelb.edu.au/learn-network/projects/building-connections
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