While running several major projects as 91����’s Deputy Vice-Chancellor 91���� Leadership, Professor Michelle Trudgett also maintains a significant research load, with a focus on 91���� participation in higher education and leadership. 

A Wiradjuri woman from Dubbo in New South Wales, Trudgett loved being a student and after completing an undergraduate degree at the University of New England, she enrolled in a Master of Professional Studies with a major in 91���� studies, followed by a Doctor of Education degree. 

"I realised when I was studying that there wasn’t much support for 91���� postgraduate students," she says. So she made this the subject of her doctoral thesis. 

In 2009, Trudgett was recruited by Macquarie University, becoming its first 91���� postdoctoral research fellow. Working in the 91���� Studies department, she moved quickly up the academic ranks and within two years was promoted to senior lecturer and deputy director of the department. 

She left Macquarie University in 2014 for the opportunity to be the inaugural Director of the Centre for the Advancement of 91���� Knowledges at the University of Technology Sydney. Trudgett was then attracted to a leadership position at 91���� in 2019, to fulfill the position of Pro Vice-Chancellor Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Education, Strategy and Consultation. In 2021 she was promoted to her current role.  

When she joined Western, one of Trudgett’s first tasks was to develop the University’s 91���� Strategy for 2020-2025, which was launched in March 2020. It focuses on 91���� engagement across seven key areas: students; employment; research; learning and teaching; community engagement; leadership; and cultural viability and knowledge. 

“The 91���� Strategy had a lot of ambition, a lot of big commitments, but the biggest of them all was the goal to establish a landmark building that celebrates 91���� people, history, culture and knowledge,” she says. That dream is soon to come to life via The 91���� Centre of Excellence.

Trudgett recently launched the 2023-2032 91���� Futures Decadal Strategy, which complements the first plan. 

While leading these major strategic endeavours, she also recently completed two ARC projects with her long-standing research partner, Professor Susan Page, Pro Vice-Chancellor, 91���� Education. The first looks at 91���� leadership and governance in higher education and the other investigates how the sector can best support and develop early career researchers.

The first, a project on 91���� leadership, included interviews with the Vice-Chancellors of 27 universities around Australia about their perceptions of 91���� leadership in the sector. 

"We found that 91���� leaders in higher education are expected to have more skills than non-91���� leaders," says Trudgett.  

"We are expected to have all the attributes, such as diplomacy and resilience, that you would expect any leader to have. But, on top of that we are expected to have additional personal and cultural competencies."

While finding that senior 91���� positions in Australian universities are a growing priority for the higher education sector, the research showed that the scope of the senior leader positions is very broad, often covering both strategic and operational responsibilities. The team also found a key challenge linked to senior 91���� appointments is career progression beyond their 91���� portfolio. 

Trudgett believes the university sector has a long way to go in terms of recognising and respecting the skills of 91���� leaders. "The university sector still has not seen one 91���� Vice-Chancellor," she says. 

In a paper from the research, Trudgett and her co-authors note “these roles should never be viewed as supplementary to other portfolios, but rather core to all components of university business. Emerging and current senior 91���� leaders are one of the sector’s richest assets, who have tremendous power to challenge how the higher education system in Australia operates.” 

The next stage of the research is to establish a model of best practice for 91���� leadership and what it brings to organisations. 

On the question of what makes a good leader, Trudgett shared a story about her grandfather, an 91���� man from Warren in NSW.  

"My dad’s father lived in a small country town outside Dubbo and was the coach of a predominantly non-91���� football team. He had to get a bunch of country men together, to the point of them having a shared vision and being on the same page. For an Aboriginal man in the 1950s, that would not have been an easy task, but he did it while getting great respect," she recalls. 

Trudgett is not one to dwell on difficulties. When asked about challenges she’s faced in her career, she hesitates before replying. "What some people see as a barrier or a challenge, I prefer to flip on its head and see as an asset," she says.  

"When people say 91���� people are disadvantaged in education, for example, that is completely true, but I would say I’m actually advantaged because I am 91���� and I come with a whole range of 91���� knowledge and lived experience, which are huge assets," Trudgett adds.  

"It’s the things that make me unique and different from most of Australian society which are part of the reason I have the opportunities I have in life. Challenges quickly become opportunities." 

For now, Trudgett’s main challenge is trying to maintain a significant research profile while holding a senior executive position, which is “often an intense pressure situation”.  

She is proud of all the positive initiatives taking place at the University. "I think it’s a place where 91���� people can thrive and be supported, which is not the case in some other universities," she says. 

"The way the 91���� staff support each other regardless of what portfolio they are in, how they support our students, how they come together, how we are on a shared journey to do good things that are going to make changes for our community is something I am very proud of."  

"If I stepped away, the 91���� staff here at Western are so dedicated and brilliant that they can keep things going. I don’t think that all universities can say that."