Professor Tracey McDonald
Master of Science (Honours) in Public Health 1994
PhD with the Faculty of Education 2002

Australian Catholic University’s (ACU) Professor of Ageing Tracey McDonald looks back with great fondness on her 20 years with UOW as an academic and student. Professor McDonald, who recently took up a research focused role at ACU’s McKillop Campus in North Sydney, was one of the pioneering academics who helped establish Australia’s first School of Nursing at UOW in the 1980s.

She joined UOW in 1983, attracted by the opportunity to work with the Head of the School of Nursing, Professor Bruce Partridge, and an impressive team of nursing teachers who had established reputations in the previous hospital based education system.

Professor McDonald stayed on the UOW academic staff until 1999, punctuated by a two-year secondment to the Monash University Faculty of Medicine as Head of Nursing at its Frankston campus in Victoria from 1995-97.

While at UOW, Professor McDonald completed a Masters degree in Public Health in 1994 for which she produced a Health Atlas of the Illawarra, under supervisors Professor Dennis Calvert and Professor Murray Wilson. After leaving in 1999 to join the Australian Nursing Federation in a policy development and management role she completed a PhD under Dr Jan Wright in the Faculty of Education.

Before joining ACU, Professor McDonald spent several years as Manager of Research, Policy and Professional Services at the Australian Nursing Homes and Extended Care Association and was recognised as a leader in aged care because of her involvement at all levels of the industry.

“I look back with great fondness at my time at UOW,” Professor McDonald said. “I loved working and studying there and contributing to the growth of this beautiful new university. UOW’s School of Nursing was an exciting place to be in the 1980s. It was the only university in Australia with a Nursing course, and with Bruce Partridge’s vision and leadership, I was privileged to be part of a most amazing team. Many people worked very hard over that period to build up both the Nursing course and the UOW’s reputation as a quality institution,” she said. “It now has that reputation for quality, and I am proud to have played a part in that development.”

Professor McDonald’s current position is sponsored by the RSL Veterans’ Retirement Village, and is designed to stimulate and promote research into health and social issues affecting Australia’s ageing population.

“There is quite a lot of medical research underway concerning our ageing population, but the sad truth is, not every problem can be solved by medicine,” she said. “We as a community need to acknowledge and understand older people in terms of productive ageing and to appreciate the broader issues that affect seniors and prompt the choices they make about their futures. For a start, we need to understand why increasing numbers of older Australians are retiring earlier from paid employment, joining walled communities and disconnecting from mainstream society.”

Professor McDonald is establishing research partnerships with other institutions and said she would welcome the opportunity to collaborate in the future with UOW researchers. She already works at a policy level with UOW’s Head of the Department of Nursing, Professor Patrick Crookes, on a number of State committees, and more focused partnerships on scholarly projects are possible.