Professor Tony Foley

The distinctive contribution I make to teaching innovation is twofold. I draw on the interest and passions of my fellow law academics, experts in Indigenous, environmental and criminal law, and on my own skills as a practicing lawyer to build an innovative clinical program. This allows me to contribute to the reaffirmation of my students' faith in their own capacities to be effective future lawyers. By the time students reach me they are finished with didactic teaching. They need opportunities to synthesise and use their learning. I provide these opportunities in a reflective, supportive atmosphere. My feedback and assessment strategies are designed to support and prioritise their independent learning.

I was accepted as a Higher Education Academy Senior Fellow for 'the inherent connectedness of quality assurance and enhancement in your teaching with quality professional practice.' It is this combination of reflective exposure that marks out my teaching innovation. I have continued to develop a quality clinical program spurred further by the catalyst of the College's Juris Doctor (JD) program now being positioned at Australian Quality Framework level 9 with its requirement to provide final year students with a "capstone experience". The clinics I teach sit atop their learning as capstones.

In 2014 I was awarded an ANU Vice-Chancellor's Citation for Outstanding Contribution to Student Learning for my 'sustained excellence in implementing the ANU College of Law's clinical legal education program'. In 2015 I received an Australian Award for University Teaching - Citation for Outstanding Contribution to Student Learning.