Crawford School of Public Policy

Crawford School introduces our fantastic staff, so you can meet the people of Asia and the Pacific’s leading graduate policy school.

This time around, Program Coordinator Dean Medved dicusses the changes the pandemic has brought for the delivery of short courses and his daily working routine.

What is your role and what do you enjoy most about it?

I am a Program Coordinator with Crawford’s executive education team. The best part of my role is certainly the people I get to work with. I love being part of the executive education team and working with such passionate, helpful, and friendly people. We’re only a small team which allows us to build great relationships and utilise each other’s areas of expertise to great effect. Whilst 2020 has been a daunting year for executive education full of adaption and hard work, it’s been reassuring to confront the various challenges and opportunities alongside such a wonderful team.

Further to this, I’ve also really enjoyed getting to know various Crawford people outside of the executive education team, both academics and professional staff. I’m in awe of the amount of talent and knowledge here at Crawford.

Describe your home office.

My home office is currently set up at my desk in my bedroom. After trying to do all my work on a laptop for the first week or two, I realised how much I missed having two screens, so I pinched a spare monitor from Crawford which has been incredibly useful. Whilst mornings can be a bit cool, I get some beautiful winter sun through my windows which generally warms my workspace up pretty quickly!

Have you developed any new working-from-home habits or routines?

Since working from home I’ve enjoyed getting out for a walk or doing something active during my lunch break. I find it breaks up the day nicely and it’s good to get away from my computer screens for a little while. On the flip side, eating breakfast at my desk is not a habit I’m so proud of!

All or our jobs have undergone major changes during the COVID-19 crisis. How has your role changed and how might we go about addressing some of the challenges that come with this change going forward?

The implications of COVID-19 have meant vast changes to executive education as we’ve been forced to move away from traditional face-to-face delivery toward online and remote format. With this, mine and other team members’ roles have changed substantially. I’ve become adept in various new software for video and transcript editing, and digital workbook creation. I’ve also become familiar with setting up online course areas, as well as learning the ins and outs of Webex and Zoom for the facilitation of live webinars for our course participants.

I think the best way to address the challenges posed by COVID-19 is to approach things with an open mind and be willing to be adaptable. Looking for opportunities to make the most out of a dire situation is also important. At a personal level, I’ve learnt some incredibly useful new skills that I certainly didn’t expect to form part of my role when I first started at Crawford, which has been great! For executive education, COVID-19 has prompted the opportunity to explore a whole new avenue of online and distance learning – something which had not previously received much consideration. Whilst the associated workload has stretched our small team at times, the results have been incredibly rewarding so far!

Tell us something about yourself that people might not know, or would find surprising.

I’m currently studying a Bachelor of Commerce at the College of Business and Economics here at ANU. I hope to graduate in 2021.