Pru Goward to address Women in Business Lunch in Lismore on Thursday, Oct 30

Federal Sex Discrimination Commissioner Pru Goward is no stranger to the challenges facing women in the nation's workplace environment, social and domestic platforms and political scene. Ms Goward is the special guest speaker at the next Women In Business Lunch, hosted by Southern Cross University (SCU), on Thursday, October 30. The lunch, at 12.30pm in the SCU Staff and Graduate Club on the Lismore campus, is open to the public.

Ms Goward will address work and family issues relating to rural and regional women. She will discuss the relative dearth of women in higher level management and professorial roles, in relation to the high number of women graduates and their lesser earnings and seniority compared to their male counterparts.

Ms Goward was appointed Federal Sex Discrimination Commissioner in 2001 for a five-year term. She has brought a range of private and public sector experience to the position and has worked closely on women's rights issues for several years, in particular as head of the Commonwealth Government's Office of the Status of Women from 1997 to 1999. Before that, she was a national affairs journalist and political commentator with the ABC for 19 years.

Ms Goward completed an Arts Economics degree with Honours from the University of Adelaide while teaching high school in Adelaide during the 1970s. Over the past 10 years she has also run her own media management company, been a freelance newspaper and magazine columnist, and a part-time lecturer in Broadcast Journalism at the University of Canberra. She is also a published author.

The Women in Business Lunch is an initiative of the SCU Regional Gateway Project (SCURG), which recognises the University's responsibility to effect workable partnerships with regional stakeholders, particularly in the areas of research, economic development, student placement and application of academic rigour to policy generation and planning.

The SCURG project is eager to hear from delegates to the lunch, ways in which students, academics and business can work more closely together in terms of research, enterprise mentors, internship placements, Alumni and training. This is the final Women in Businss lunch for the year. More Leadership in Business events are planned for 2004.

For more information and bookings for the lunch, costing $38.50 per person, contact Judy Hill in SCU’s School of Tourism, Ph: 66 203 051, or email jhill@scu.edu.au.

Media enquiries: SCU media liaison Sara Crowe or Kath Duncan Ph: 6620 3144 or M: 0439 858 057.