Dean's Keynote: Professor Alexandra Lasczik

You are invited to our next Dean's Keynote Series event, on Thursday, 15th May 2025.

The Dean's Keynote Series theme for 2025 is 'Transformative Research Translation: Bridging Theory and Practice for Lasting Global Impact'. We welcome all to attend this most important series of events.

Abstract

In this presentation, Professor Lasczik explores her lifelong passion, mission and focus, namely enhancing the educational experiences of children and young people through the Arts. In some ways, this has been a failed experiment despite Professor Lasczik’s ongoing advocacy for high-quality Art education and more time in the curriculum for the Arts. Much of what is delivered in schools as Art education is too often squeezed into the cracks, teetering on the margins of learning rather than being centred as the potent experience that it ineffably is.

Children are all born creative and brave, yet something happens to them as they grow – the opportunities to express themselves artistically at school become minimised, the Art curriculum becomes marginalised, and funding for high-quality Art materials diminishes. Children’s creative genius falls away to be replaced by standardisation, league tables, and direct instruction. The focus too often is on making a living, paying taxes and contributing to economic growth and prosperity, hence the emphasis on STEM in recent years. While these things are, of course, important, so too is making a life.

Art can do all these things when the curriculum is designed creatively, and students are taught well, but it also can do so much more. This presentation will touch on these themes and more, journeying through artmaking in early childhood, and reengaging at-risk youth in secondary contexts, and finally, to Professor Lasczik’s own practice.

Dr Alexandra Lasczik is Professor, Arts & Education in the Faculty of Education at Southern Cross University, Australia. She is Associate Dean Education Partnerships, and Research co-Leader of the Sustainability, Environment and the Arts in Education Research Centre [SEAE]. Alexandra is an expert educator with 40 years’ experience and, in that time, has taught in some of Australia’s most challenging secondary schools, as well as internationally. She has taught in higher education for over 20 years, firstly as a sessional tutor for six years and then in her continuing position at SCU for the past 15 years. She is also an artist and writer whose chosen media are painting, photography, poetry, walking, memoir and fiction. Place and displacement are significant themes in Alexandra’s work, as are the Arts and Arts-based Educational Research [ABER], particularly A/r/tography. Alexandra is an Artivist committed to equity and social justice, and her spirited advocacy of a high-quality Arts education for all spans her entire career. Alexandra is a specialist in the Visual Arts, risky pedagogy, and creative curriculum, with particular expertise in the engagement of at-risk youth through the Arts. Alexandra brings this extensive experience and depth of understanding of the sector to her influential work in teacher education at Southern Cross University.