Bond University

Deborah's Friends

Jim

Professor of Law

Ben

Professor of Human Resource Management

Amanda

Master of Public Relations, Master of Business Administration (MBA)

Kuldeep

Associate Professor of Economics

Daniel

Associate Professor of Urban Planning

Cynthia

Professor of Management/Head of Department (Management)

DEBORAH

Associate Professor, Children's Services

My name is Deborah Harcourt, and I joined Bond in March 2008 as an Associate Professor of Children's Services. Many of our students go in to the area of child protection and I think we are one of the few universities offering such a program. However, our students can also work in early childhood services such as child care centres, child health, out of school hours support and state government departments, which mean there are diverse career opportunities.

QUALIFICATIONS:

PhD, MEd (ECE) BEd (ECE) DipT (ECE)

mY cAREER sO fAR: I spent 12 years teaching children 3-5 years in Adelaide and on the Sunshine Coast. I then moved in to early childhood teacher education, establishing my own training school on the Sunshine Coast. In 2000 I moved to Singapore to establish a graduate program in teacher education at NgeeAnn Polytechnic and for the next seven and a half years established 2 teacher's colleges, and worked on professional development activities in Indonesia, China, Sri Lanka, India, Middle East, Malaysia and Cambodia.

Completing my PhD was a huge thing for me. I was working 70 hours a week, travelling constantly around the world with my job and my husband and I also adopted a little girl from Cambodia (as well looking after my two young boys). I am also very proud of the work I have done around informing young children as part of research enterprises.

WHY I CHOSE BOND: I liked the fact that the degree offered in Children's Services was inter-disciplinary and that there is a balance between teaching and research expectations for academic staff. Having worked in private enterprise for so long, Bond University provides an opportunity for me to marry both by business and academic skills.