Diploma of Teaching (Primary), 1974
Winner of the 2025 Distinguished Alumni Award
Admired. Influential. Courageous. Respected.
These are just a few of the words used to describe Professor Colleen Hayward AM.
Some 50 years since graduating from Edith Cowan University (ECU) with a Diploma of Teaching (Primary), Colleen has been named the winner of the 2025 Distinguished Alumni Award.
The highly respected senior Noongar woman has been a true trailblazer, reflecting the needs of minority groups at community, state and national levels, and providing significant input to policies and programs on a wide range of issues.
It is a career journey that began when Colleen decided to follow in the footsteps of her parents and become a teacher.
“I was still living at home when I was at teacher’s college and the nightly routine was always, after dinner everyone was doing schoolwork,” Colleen recalls. “Mum and Dad were doing prep for their lessons, my older sister who'd also gone into teaching was studying and doing assignments. I was studying and doing assignments and the rest of the kids – another four after me - were all still at school. It was very much the norm in the household.”
After graduating, Colleen began teaching at Spearwood Primary School, before being transferred to Gingin.
“I had the best of both worlds. Gingin was only an hour up the road, so I boarded with another teacher during the week and I could come home on weekends,” Colleen says. “Being in the country was a blessing. You really were embedded and embraced, in terms of the school community, the broader community. Everyone knew you, and you knew everyone. You knew the family stories.”
Colleen then moved back to Perth, teaching at North Lake Primary in Coolbellup followed by Dalkeith Primary School, before a major health scare in her early 30s steered her on a different career path.
“They were very different experiences but I didn’t have a bad experience while I was teaching – the classes of kids were always fantastic,” she says. “At the end of my third year at Dalkeith, I was diagnosed with cancer and while surgery and treatment was successful, it made me realise what a physical job teaching is.
“And while I was well enough to work, I wasn’t well enough to go back to teaching.”
With an interest in policy initiatives sparked while teaching, Colleen was thrilled to win a position with the teacher’s union after her cancer battle.
“I'd been sitting on their education and Aboriginal education committees. That gave me a different look at things and forced you to look bigger, because those policies were across the board, not just for your classroom or your school or even your district - they were much bigger and more impactful.”
Colleen achieved many things during her time at the State School Teacher’s Union of WA, including amending the teacher promotion system, introducing a major structure change and abolishing compulsory country service. She also worked with the Education Department on the development of the Aboriginal studies curriculum and spent time in the Aboriginal issues unit of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal deaths in custody.
“It was absolutely gut-wrenching, because we weren't on the legal side, we were on the policy side of things - you were seeing people who were horrendously marred by tragedy - interviewing them and collecting their stories.
“I think that's what led me to work in the Aboriginal Legal Service. I was there as Deputy Chief Executive, so it was all about defending people and advocating so that government policies were changed.”
Colleen then went to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC) bringing change on a national level, before heading the Aboriginal maternal and child health research arm of the Telethon Institute for Child Health Research.
In 2009 Colleen was appointed as Head of Kurongkurl Katitjin, ECU’s Centre for Indigenous Australian Education and Research, where she was instrumental in shaping inclusive education policies.
By 2012 Colleen was part of the executive of the very institution she studied at, as Pro-Vice-Chancellor, Equity and Indigenous.
“Decades before when I first started at Mount Lawley with my teacher training qualifications, there were no amenities, there was no cafeteria - it was only part way through my first year that they developed any kind of library,” she said. “To come back and see the growth and development and the spread of occupational endeavour and qualification was just fabulous.
“From every perspective, I absolutely loved my time at ECU. I retired almost seven years ago but I still say we – I'm incredibly proud of ECU - how far we've come, what we lead, the culture, the focus, the concentration on student experience, which takes me right back to my teaching days.”
With no slowing down in retirement, Colleen sits on multiple boards, including as Vice President of the Fremantle Dockers Football Club. Her recent appointment as the first Aboriginal woman on the board of an ASX50 company, Mineral Resources Ltd, further enhances her national profile and influence, and shows she’s still breaking down barriers.
“I know that so much of what I've had the pleasure of being involved with over my life journey is an absolute privilege, and there has been a lot of work of course - no one succeeds without hard work and drive and motivation – but the fact that I've also been recognised is a bonus.”
Colleen’s contributions have been formally recognised through numerous prestigious awards, including the National NAIDOC Aboriginal Person of the Year Award, the WA Premier’s Multicultural Ambassador’s Award, induction into the WA Women’s Hall of Fame and Department of Education’s Hall of Fame for Aboriginal Education, and appointment as a Member of the Order of Australia.
But it’s something much simpler that she’s most proud of.
“I am thankful every time anyone says to me ‘I didn't know I could do this, but I saw that you had and that gave me the motivation’.
“You know, you live your life trying to be a good person and trying to make a positive difference for others, especially others who are not as advantaged as you. And when you can be any kind of motivation for anyone to do better or to strive more or to achieve more - I don't know that anyone could ask for more than that.”
