Longest serving female academic in Faculty recognised
As part of the recent Staff Excellence Awards at Victoria, the longest-serving female academic was recognised for her 25 years' service to Victoria’s Faculty of Law.Associate Professor Elisabeth McDonald’s association with the Faculty at Victoria began in 1985, when she enrolled for the Bachelor of Laws, which she finished in 1987 as one of three Senior Scholars to graduate in May 1988, along with Matthew Palmer QC.
After an interlude in Washington DC (as part of the Jessup Moot team) and Michigan, where she completed a Master of Laws, Elisabeth returned to Victoria in June 1989 as a temporary lecturer, a position that was made permanent in January 1990—the year in which she had her first child.
She was promoted to Senior Lecturer in January 1995 and to Associate Professor in January 2005.
Elisabeth worked at the Law Commission on secondment for two years, on both the women’s access to justice project and evidence law reform—an area in which she has subsequently published extensively—both generally, and in the application of that law to the particular problems associated with sexual violence.
Highlights of her time at the Faculty include successfully introducing a special topic course—Feminist Legal Theory—at her first faculty meeting, a white-water rafting trip with Neil Cameron and Graeme Austin, editing three special issues of the Victoria University of Wellington Law Review and being involved in a curriculum review with Sir Geoffrey Palmer.
She stifles laughter when her evidence students refer to her as a “learned author” as part of their oral arguments. In her most recent course evaluations for her evidence course, a student remarked that she had “excellent fashion sense” too.