Visiting Fellows
Cath Fraser
October 1 - December 2, 2012
Cath Fraser is an educational consultant, working with a number of different organizations in New Zealand’s tertiary sector. Current projects include contracted research, teaching and learning resource development, and programme documentation and review. Prior to 2012, Cath worked at the Bay of Plenty Polytechnic (BoPP) in Tauranga, in the Bay of Plenty region.
Cath is enthusiastic about the opportunities for collegial and interdisciplinary collaboration offered in all areas of higher education. A long-term interest is the building and leveraging of mentoring relationships for personal and professional development and enhanced workplace satisfaction. One expression of the benefits of mentoring relationships is found in the annual Writers’ Retreats, which Cath has co-facilitated for a number of years for staff from the University of Waikato and BoPP. The week-long residential retreats combine writing workshops with one-to-one coaching and a lot of personal writing time, and aim to assist staff to achieve peer-reviewed publication, or pursue higher qualifications. Cath was also editor of Forum, BoPP’s twice-yearly in-house magazine to showcase staff academic writing.
While at BoPP, as a Senior Academic Staff Member in Student and Staff Support Services, Cath ran pre-semester introductory study skills programmes, taught in-class workshops and worked with students to help them improve their academic outcomes. She was part of a team charged with delivering teacher training for new staff, and teacher evaluations.
Another role was Research Leader, responsible for growing the institution’s research culture by assisting staff to develop and undertake research projects. This team also reviewed all institutional research proposals and managed the endorsed projects. Personal research interests include mentoring, supporting diversity and biculturalism, and international students. Cath has been an Executive member, and Publications Officer for our national association of Learning Advisors, and continues to oversee the annual publication of the Refereed Conference Proceedings. She has written and reviewed papers for a number of national and international journals, and enjoys opportunities to meet and work with colleagues from our global professional community. A personal career highlight has been a teaching exchange at Seoul Women’s University, South Korea, in 2010.