Graduate Careers Australia
The Graduate Grapevine – Number 3, March 2006
Profile: Col McCowan OAM
As part of the most recent Australia Day Honours, Col McCowan, Head of the Careers and Employment Service at the Queensland University of Technology, was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) for services to Tertiary Education, particularly in the field of career development as a counsellor, educator and author.
Col has made a longstanding contribution to career development and is widely known internationally for his efforts. He is the author of A Guide to Career Education and Working the Web: Career Planning via the Internet (both with Malcolm McKenzie).
Col’s early career goals were focused on teaching in Primary Schools; this was interrupted by a stint in the National Service. Upon his return Col entered the Queensland Department of Education’s training program for guidance officers (secondary) and a Postgraduate degree in Psychology and a Masters in Guidance and Counselling followed. In 1993 Col was appointed as the first Head of QUT’s newly created Careers and Employment Service. The Service now caters for 40,000+ students over four campuses, including 5000 from overseas. On latest figures, 90 per cent of QUT’s final year students are aware of and use some aspect of the Careers Service.
Col’s other leading professional activities include work with AACC and NAGCAS, organising a number of successful conferences for both associations. He also organised, on behalf of DEST and CICA, the Forum on Professional Standards for Career Counsellors (2004) and the International Symposium on Career Development and Public Policy which is to be held in Sydney in April this year (over 30 country teams attending). As well as being on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Career Development, Col has been working for UNESCO on a career development project for Bhutan, and has undertaken research on cross-generational career development issues and the impact on educational institutions and industry.
Principles that characterise Col’s approach to his role are those of stimulating self-reliance in others and ensuring client needs are met. A major focus of his service delivery is on access, accountability and quality standards.
Graduate Careers Australia congratulates Col McCowan for receiving the Medal of the Order of Australia. We believe it is a most well-deserved award following Col’s many years of unstinting service in the career development area of Higher Education.
Working with UNESCO in Bhutan
Col undertook two different projects in Bhutan. One was to develop a national career advisory system, and the other a national youth policy. For each project he lived in Thimphu for four months but travelled widely across the country. For example, one 400 km journey took him three days to complete, travelling along treacherous and winding roads through Bhutan’s mountainous and beautiful countryside. Col found it very interesting to transfer his understandings of career and adolescent development into a completely different context.
Universal education has now been introduced to Bhutan with a large number of coeducational secondary boarding schools established across the country, often in fairly isolated sites. Teachers were sent to boarding teachers colleges in India to train for work in these schools. Since Col’s time television has come to Bhutan and the King has declared that the country will become a democracy by 2008.
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