Entrepreneurs, innovation and international opportunities are all concepts at the forefront of Professor Christina Lee’s mind as she gets to grips with her new role as dean of the Federation Business School.
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Prof Lee took on her new role less than a month ago and stepped straight in to what she describes as an “exciting time” for Ballarat’s business community.
“There’s lots of opportunity to be enterprising, especially in Ballarat, where we are looking at development of the region and small businesses becoming a very important aspect of the city.
“I’ve been in Ballarat a month and attended the opening of (business incubator) Runway HQ and StartUp Ballarat and three of our young staff are going in to schools working with students on their entrepreneurial ideas. All this activities ties in beautifully with what Federation Business School does.”
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Prof Lee comes to Federation University from a similar role in Malaysia where she was head of marketing and director of the MBA program for Monash University Malaysia, and head of the Business School at Monash Malaysia.
With more than 25 years of academic experience she has held positions at the University of Auckland, Pennsylvania State University and Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.
“I felt I needed a change and when this job came up I saw it as an opportunity to really use my entrepreneurial and innovation skills to bring something new to Federation University … and particularly help to develop people,” she said.
Prof Lee is keen to grow the number of international students studying at Federation Business School, and wants to expand experiential learning within the courses.
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“In Malaysia we did a lot of integrated and experiential learning and I really enjoyed the experiential learning projects because I believe in the practical aspects of education.
“You can teach theory but you’ve got to get students to engage and understand how theory work in practice.”
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