Oorala Aboriginal Centre

The Oorala Aboriginal Centre was established in 1986 to support the growing number of Aboriginal students at UNE and to provide an area for study, tutorials and contact between students enrolled at UNE. Aboriginal education has a long and proud tradition in Armidale and the New England and early on the Oorala Lecture Series and the annual Frank Archibald Memorial Lecture were established. In the early 1990s Oorala introduced highly successful education programs for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students at UNE. This included the TRACKS tertiary preparation program, the Pre-Orientation Program (POP) and the Internal Selection Program (ISP). Together these programs broadened the available access to higher education for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. All three programs are still running, 25 years later. In 2012/13 Oorala introduced three undergraduate units and one post-graduate unit, Aboriginal Resilience and the Arts, and Working with Aboriginal People, which continue to be incorporated into an increasing number of UNE disciplines. Today the Centre has become an integral part in the engagement of UNE’s nearly 900 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students. The new Centre, officially opened in 2007, offers state-of-the art teaching and learning spaces, and more than 20 staff now work at the Centre. Oorala continues to innovate in the areas of teaching and learning. The Centre works to support the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students who study online; providing scholarship opportunities to undergraduate and the increasing number of post-graduate students; and assisting the next generation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to explore pathways to higher education through its Aboriginal Youth Camps and Experience Days.