May 2, 2014

Professor Barry Harper retires after 39 years at UOW

After almost 40 years with UOW, Emeritus Professor Barry Harper – a former Dean of Education and, most recently, Academic Dean of UOW Programmes at INTI International University and Colleges in Malaysia and Pro Vice-Chancellor South East Asia – is retiring. 

Over four decades, Professor Harper has worked in the field of education in various roles and has been directly involved in dozens of research projects. He has spent much of his career understanding and developing the use of technology in education. 

“Throughout my career my research has been focused on improving learning and teaching. When affordable technologies for education started to appear in the late eighties and early nineties, a lot of new very exciting opportunities for new types of pedagogies suddenly were available. The constant march of new technologies has offered a rich vein of research opportunities and I think this is what has been so exciting about education technology research over the last three decades.” 

Professor Harper’s work has been published widely. He has also mentored students and undertaken research projects with government and commercial partners. 

Before being appointed Dean of Education, Professor Harper had been Director of the Digital Media Centre and Co-Director of the former Faculty of Education’s Multimedia Laboratory. Professor Harper also led the Intelligent Environments research group for the Smart Internet Technology Centre for Research Concentration and was a member of the Scientific Committee on the European Union funded TENCompetence project. Additionally, Professor Harper has served on the editorial board of numerous journals and was an International Reader for the Australian Research Council. 

Professor Harper served as Dean of Education for five years, from 2002 until 2007 when he first retired. Family and colleagues celebrated his time at UOW with a farewell dinner at the City Beach Function Centre and in December he was appointed an emeritus professor. 

Nonetheless, Professor Harper returned to work when the opportunity to be a part of UOW’s initiative to offer quality education to students in Malaysia through INTI International University and Colleges. 

“I had considerable experience in Malaysia and this was a new model for offshore UOW programs, so it appeared to me to be an exciting opportunity. Additionally, the Deputy Vice-Chancellor (International) [Professor Joe Chicharo] asked me to take this position and I knew we could work well as we had been Deans together.” 

Professor Harper says the challenges faced when establishing the partnership –developing programs and policies to suit offshore students and their needs, getting to understand the Malaysian higher education system and how to manage the implementation of a program with an offshore partner – also presented opportunities. 

“The offshore program in Malaysia has been very successful and has tapped into a cohort of students that almost certainly would not have come to Wollongong. The students enrolled with us in Malaysia are receiving an excellent education, but also the program is offering the University a way to improve our programs through globalisation of our curriculum, academic collaborations, research and shared innovative teaching experiences.”

 Now enjoying his second retirement, Professor Harper can reflect on what he himself learnt during this most recent journey with UOW in Malaysia.  

“What my experience did reinforce for me was my original belief and now solid perception that UOW is an incredibly competent institution with expert and dedicated academics and administrators all demonstrating an extremely collaborative 'can do' attitude.”