I am, you are, we are Australian

“You can’t aspire to something you don’t have knowledge about.”

Michael McDaniel’s profound statement is grounded in experience. A Wiradjuri man who left school at age 14, he has seen the intergenerational impact of higher education first hand.

As the newly appointed Director of Jumbunna Indigenous House of Learning, McDaniel plans to use his 22 years’ experience in Indigenous education to enhance Jumbunna’s success.

The centre, which was established in 1987, provides alternative access opportunities to Indigenous students and staff, learning assistance and tutorial assistance for Indigenous students, engages in research and also undertakes community outreach. Last year alone, Jumbunna assisted over 400 Indigenous students who enrolled at UTS.

“Jumbunna has a long history of contribution and innovation to Indigenous education,” says McDaniel.

“We have an excellent research team within Jumbunna, headed by Professor Larissa Behrendt. The team is incredibly successful in gaining research grants but also in terms of its reputation in contributing to some of the major Indigenous agendas and debates that are taking place at present.”

However, McDaniel says, “One of our challenges is to make higher education a possibility; to put it into the vocabulary, the thinking, of young Indigenous people.”

He hopes to use his five-year term to implement a range of programs aimed at doing just that.

They include developing a whole-of-institution approach to better align UTS’s work to the Indigenous Higher Education Advisory Council’s priorities, furthering the research capacity of Indigenous academic staff, increasing enrolments of Indigenous higher degree research students and enhancing our formal and informal consultation arrangements with Indigenous communities.

“There’s an incredible amount of goodwill for Indigenous education across the university, I think that’s one of the strengths of UTS. I’m constantly surprised by people coming up and telling me about their personal interest, involvement, research interests or preparedness to become involved in Indigenous education.”

His affinity for the university is one reason McDaniel decided to apply for the job. From 1990 to 2003 McDaniel worked as an academic within UTS’s School of Adult Education and, for a short time, was Director of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Programs. Most recently he headed Indigenous education programs at Macquarie University and the University of Western Sydney, and from 1996 to 1999 (while on leave without pay from the university) was a member of the National Native Title Tribunal.

“When the position became available here it gave me the opportunity to make a contribution at a higher level and that’s a privilege really.”

McDaniel readily admits that as a child growing up in Sydney, “I never imagined in my wildest dreams I’d be doing this job. I’m certain I didn’t even know what a university was.”

After 11 years working as a rural labourer, in the armed forces, as a security guard and in a variety of other roles, McDaniel took a chance and applied for a University of Western Sydney bridging course for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

“That bridging course was one of the most rewarding and exciting periods of my life and it certainly put my life on a different trajectory. As it did my entire immediate family.” McDaniel’s three children – Jarrod, Lachlan and Emily – have, or are in the process of completing, their own university degrees.

“There’s often a misunderstanding that Indigenous education is just for Indigenous people. It’s for all Australians.

“It’s also about gaining knowledge about Indigenous Australians and who we are; completing the picture of being Australian.

“Indigenous education is relevant to every student at university, well it should be. That’s certainly how we should be thinking about it. It’s about nation building.”