Alice is a senior adviser for Work-Integrated Learning and Career Development at Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington. The award recognises her crucial contribution to the success of the 2024 WILNZ conference held at the University As well as the conference, she also worked on updating the new WILNZ website, and continues to manage it.
At the University, Alice works across a range of Work-Integrated Learning course and skills development initiatives, helping students prepare for a great work experience both during their study and after they graduate. Through internships, workshops, projects, and degrees with WIL components, students learn valuable work skills alongside their academic studies.
For the 2025 conference in April, Alice hosted a pre-conference workshop for attendees around engagement and communications for Work Integrated Learning and stakeholders. Her Service Award was presented at an awards dinner at Mission Estate Winery during the conference, which was held this year at the Eastern Institute of Technology in Napier.
“I was very surprised,” Alice says. “It was funny because they called out my name and I didn’t go up because I thought it was another Alice. The person next to me was like ‘isn’t that your last name?’ and poor Karsten, the president of WILNZ, was standing there waiting.
“It was really nice to get the award because a lot of work has gone on there, and it can be lonely at times, though it was great connecting with others across the organisation.
Alice says one of the things she has enjoyed about being involved with the conference was “the really lovely people” from a cross section of polytechnics, universities, workforce development agencies, and apprenticeship organisations. At this year’s conference, Alice enjoyed being able to participate as an attendee, not an organiser. Topics of discussion included neurodiversity, AI, and the value of play at university, amongst others.
“Universities in New Zealand are focusing on the connection between WIL and careers, which is really cool. I find it hard to separate them out because that’s my background, but people are making a concerted effort to connect them more, which is great to see.
“The work I do with WIL in terms of suggesting things for conferences or the website or resources is often based on my experience of working with the students themselves. That feeds into everything. So it was interesting to go to the conference and think about the students I’m working with and how to apply it all in real time—making it fun, giving agency, and working effectively with AI, and providing a supportive and rewarding student experience.”
One of the recent initiatives Alice has led, in collaborating with Nancy Marquez from Student Learning was an Intro to Project Management workshop, available for any student at the University. The idea was to bring workshops often only available to students doing WIL to all student at the University. 'It was amazing she says. 'It was a full session and the room was buzzing. The students wanted to stayand have it for longer. We had students from different faculties, from first-year building sciences, to arts PhDs.”
Another great example of collaboration in work-integrated learning is with the Wellington School of Business and Government 400-level HRER course, The Future of Work and Employment. Alice and Associate Professor Noelle Donnelly took students in the course on a field-trip to the Police headquarters and saw everything in action. They are now presenting research on things the police want to know more about.
“My approach is that any student from any formal work experience, volunteering or not, should get all the same resources,” Alice says. “I offer workshops and resources to all of our students to build up those skills and increase their confidence.”