“I was lucky enough to be given the opportunity to take part in ACU’s Scholar’s program. The program offered students the chance to develop their own undergraduate research project, culminating in an undergraduate thesis. It was a huge challenge and it really pushed my classmates and I but it was fantastic. It gave all of us a great insight into what research is like, it presented us with so many new ideas about how our work can have a real impact, and it gave us all the opportunity to become good friends.”

Professor Timothy McKenry is a music researcher, composer and pedagogue. In 2014 he won an OLT citation for Excellence in Learning and Teaching, as well as the Chancellor’s Teaching Excellence Award. His research interests include issues of ethics in music, Australian art music and cultural identity, music pedagogy and music theory. His recent research projects include studies of the pedagogical inheritance that informs the teaching of composition in Australian secondary and tertiary institutions, a major survey of contemporary Australian opera, and a study of the ethical practices that inform music practice in Australia.

Professor McKenry is a nationally recognised expert in the area of music language study and composer training and has written syllabi for state and national examining bodies. He helped embed composition in the Victorian Certificate of Education and has undertaken a leadership role in fostering best-practice pedagogy in the study of music language study across Australia through research, teacher training, publication and advocacy of the discipline.