Gender Justice Hub
Gender Justice Hub

About the Research

The global prevalence of Gender-based violence (GBV) has led the United Nations to describe it as a “shadow pandemic” (UN Women, 2020b). On a national scale, GBV is a critical problem across society, representing a cost to the Australian economy estimated at $21.7 billion annually (PwC, 2015) and with significant negative effects on well-being. In Australia and the Hunter region services are under-resourced to address the current crises, let alone to support victim/survivors toward recovery, including through life-long learning.

Research with Student Victim-Survivors

Through the Gender Justice Hub we are generating new knowledge about how gender-based violence (GBV) experienced across a lifetime impacts on students’ access to and participation in higher education. No previous research has examined the question of equity in higher education through the prism of students who have suffered GBV across their lifetimes.

The project includes 430 responses from students who are or who have known victim-survivors of GBV along with 48 in-depth interviews with student victim-survivors.

Literature Review
Overview

The extent of gendered-based violence (GBV) has been described as a global pandemic, with significant implications for access and participation in higher education. Increasingly, high-profile international efforts are being put into place through bodies such as the United Nations (UN). For example, the Spotlight Initiative brings the UN together with the European Union to eliminate all forms of violence against women and girls (UN Women, 2020a). Gender based violence, particularly domestic violence, has intensified since the onslaught of COVID-19 due to many women being trapped at home with their abusers and struggling to access services that are suffering from cuts and restrictions (UN Women, 2020b). In relation to these concerns, and the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal 5 to achieve gender equality, universities are challenged to understand and respond to the significance of GBV in the context of higher education. This has been an under-researched area (Wagner & Magnusson, 2005) and has received little attention in higher education policy terms, aside from the issue of GBV on campus (see, for example: Heywood et al., 2022; Australian Human Rights Commission, 2017). 

There is a general trend in research that explores GBV in higher education contexts to conflate this focus with violence that occurs on campus or which is directly related to the university context (Heywood et al., 2022). The ways in which GBV that occurs in external settings from the institution then impacts on student experience is underexplored. However, experiences of GBV for students, academics and university staff in any context affects the ways in which they then participate in and experience higher education. Recent policy initiatives in the higher education sector in Australia have recognised the significant impact that GBV at home can have on paid staff by advocating for, and securing, employee access to dedicated leave to support staff during situations of domestic violence (Moloney, 2014). Yet there is less recognition of the ways in which student experience is impacted on by situations of GBV at home, except to recognise violence as a basis from which to apply for special consideration when adverse circumstances affect a student’s capacity to complete coursework and assessment items. Furthermore, the ways in which student experiences of GBV are recognised and addressed by universities is at institutional discretion. For example, La Trobe University has domestic violence explicitly outlined as a basis from which to claim special circumstances in regards to student assessment work, while the University of Newcastle does not. Considering the impact of GBV at home on the capacity for students to complete assessment work is important; but the ways in which this recognition is embedded in university policy is at institutional discretion, applies primarily to circumstances of acute violence and requires students to disclose abuse. Yet the underreporting of domestic violence and the difficulties that confront victim-survivors in disclosing their experiences is well documented in scholarly literature (for an overview, see: Watts & Zimmerman, 2002). 

Similarly, the international body of scholarship that relates to GBV and higher education, broadly, lacks perspectives that consider how violent experiences that occur outside of campus settings impact on experiences of higher education. There are two major bodies of research in this area: firstly, documenting the experiences of sexual and gender-based violence that occur primarily in on-campus settings and ways that such experiences are negotiated, addressed, and can be prevented (for example: Heywood et al., 2022; Phipps & Smith, 2012; AHRC, 2017); secondly, pertaining to the ways in which course activities can provoke disclosures of violent experiences within higher education settings and the ways that staff in particular respond to these disclosures (for example: Wagner & Manusson, 2005; Reilly & D’Amico, 2011). Subsequently, there is a tendency in this body of literature that examines GBV in higher education contexts to assume that student experience is isolated to those activities that occur ‘on campus’, with less consideration of the impact of violence that occurs outside of campus on the experience of higher education. As such, the latter is the focus of the current research. 

Prevalence of GBV in Australia
In 2016, the Australian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) conducted a national survey of 30,000 university students across Australia’s 39 universities to investigate the prevalence of sexual assault and sexual harassment at Australian universities. The resulting Change the Course Report (AHRC, 2017) revealed that 51 per cent of students had been sexually harassed at least once in 2016. A significant proportion of that harassment occurred in university settings, with 26 per cent of students experiencing sexual harassment in a university setting in 2016. These settings included university campus, at university employment, attending a universityendorsed off-campus event, or travelling to and from campus. The report found that women experienced sexual assault and harassment at much higher levels than men, being almost twice as likely to experience harassment in 2016 and almost three times as likely to experience assault in 2015 or 2016. Men also made up the majority of perpetrators of sexual harassment and assault (AHRC, 2017). 

A survey of 44,000 students conducted in 2021 by Universities Australia found that 16 per cent of students had been sexually harassed in a university context since they started their degrees and 8 percent in the previous 12 months (Heywood et al., 2022). The Report’s authors note that the extent on online learning in the two years before the survey was conducted likely reduced experiences of harassment and assault experienced “in a university context” – which was the focus of the survey (Heywood et al., 2022, p.4). However the study replicated the 2016 survey’s findings that 53 per cent of female students had experienced sexual harassment in their lifetimes (Heywood et al., 2022, p.4) Outside of university settings, research shows that women aged between 18 and 24 years experience sexual violence at more than twice the national rate, with one in five women experiencing sexual violence since the age of 15 compared to one in twenty-two men experiencing the same (Cox, 2015). A 2012 prevalence study by the AHRC found that roughly one in five people 15 and over have experienced sexual harassment in the workplace in the last five years, women (25 per cent) were more likely to be sexually harassed in the workplace than men (16 per cent), and men and women are more likely to be sexually harassed and assaulted by a male perpetrator (p.1). Significantly, the COVID-19 pandemic has only served to exacerbate existing levels of domestic violence and abuse experienced by Australian women (Boxall et al., 2020). A survey conducted in May 2020 indicated that two-thirds of women reported levels of physical or sexual violence by a cohabiting partner having either started or escalating in the three months prior (that is, commencing with the onset of the pandemic; Boxall et al., 2020). Many women indicated that safety concerns were a barrier to them seeking help. The AHRC (2017) reports that particular groups, such as young people, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans (LGBT) people, people from culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) backgrounds and people with a disability may experience higher rates of sexual assault and sexual harassment than the general Australian population. The 2021 Universities Australia survey found that nearly 80 percent of gender diverse students including transgender and non-binary students had experienced sexual harassment in a university context (Heywood et al., 2022).

LGBTQIA+ populations

Queer communities (encompassing lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex and asexual communities) have been found to experience similar (Ison, 2019) or even greater (Reuter et al., 2015) levels of intimate partner violence compared to cisgender heterosexual communities. Scheer and Baams (2019) found that transgender and nonconforming young adults reported higher incidence of intimate partner violence compared to their cisgender sexual minority counterparts, while the TranZnation report (Couch et al., as cited by AHRC, 2017) found that 10 per cent of Australian and New Zealand transgender respondents had experienced sexual assault or rape. Intimate partner violence within queer communities has been shown to result in similar harmful psychological, social and physical impacts for victim-survivors as those within heterosexual communities (Barrett, 2015). Yet there are also multiple additional ways that the social and structural marginalisation of queer communities results in unique vulnerabilities related to intimate partner violence that are not experienced by heterosexuals (Barrett, 2015). These include decreased help-seeking efforts from police, social services and healthcare professionals due to fears such services will be heterocentric and lacking specific knowledge pertaining to LGBT communities, or due to finding domestic violence shelters and police less helpful compared to support services such as counsellors. Beyond intimate partner violence, sexual orientation or expression is also a known factor that makes students vulnerable to experiencing violence on university campuses (Renn, 2010). 

Indigenous populations

Compared to non-Indigenous women, Indigenous women are 45 times more likely to experience domestic violence, 35 times more likely to require hospitalisation as a consequence, and 11 times more likely to die as a result of such violence (Australian Government Productivity Commission, 2009; Aboriginal Family Violence Prevention and Legal Service, 2015). In 2018–19, 16 per cent of Indigenous people aged 15 years and over in Australia had experienced, or had been threatened with, physical violence at least once in the past year (Australian Indigenous HealthInfoNet, 2020). The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Women’s Task Force on Violence (2000) reported that dispossession, cultural fragmentation and marginalisation are key factors in this crisis. Structural and systematic disadvantage caused by colonial oppression such as loss of identity, loss of land and traditional culture, and breakdown of community kinship systems and Aboriginal law are central to understanding these patterns of higher incidence of victimhood (Korff, 2021). 

Individuals living with a disability

Violence against women with disabilities in Australia is an endemic yet largely invisible issue (Dowse et al., 2016). Two meta-analyses have demonstrated that adults and children with disabilities were significantly more likely than those without disabilities to experience interpersonal violence (Hughes et al., 2013; Jones et al., 2012). Krnjacki et al. (2016) conducted a large population-based study of Australian adults comparing rates of various types of interpersonal violence among those living with and without disabilities. They found that those with disabilities were significantly more likely to experience all forms of interpersonal violence in both the past year and since 15 years of age. These forms of violence included physical, sexual, intimate partner violence and stalking/harassment. Additionally, while men with disabilities were more likely to experience physical violence, women with disabilities were more likely to experience sexual and partner violence (Krnjacki et al., 2016). Meanwhile, analysis of data from the Australian 2012 Personal Safety Survey shows that among those with disabilities under the age of 50, 62 per cent had experienced a form of violence since the age of 15, and women with disabilities had experienced sexual violence at a rate three times more than that of women without disabilities (Dowse et al., 2016). Importantly though, this survey only samples women residing in private dwellings, excluding women with disabilities living in care settings.
The impacts of GBV on victim-survivors and family
Emotional health: Mental health and general wellbeing
The causal relationship between sexual assault and poor mental health is well-established (Jordan et al., 2010; Potter et al., 2018; Vázquez et al., 2012). There are similar strong observed links between domestic and family violence and mental health (Wood et al., 2020). Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is the most common mental health condition arising from sexual violence, although research demonstrates that almost half of victim-survivors will go on to experience anxiety or depression, with almost one in five attempting suicide (Jordan et al., 2010). In the first nationwide survey of its kind into women students’ experiences of sexual violence, Phipps and Smith (2012) found that women in further and higher education in the UK who had experienced sexual violence reported an impact of these incidents on their relationships (63 per cent), mental health and wellbeing (49 per cent), physical health (12 per cent), finances (8 per cent), paid work (7 per cent), and studies (25 per cent). Similarly, an online survey of American undergraduate women who had experienced sexual assault between 18–24 years of age while at college showed 72.8 per cent reported experiencing mental health complications as a consequence of their assault (Potter et al., 2018). Moreover, an anonymous survey among women students attending a university campus in Southwest USA revealed significant (though small) positive correlations between the severity of psychological, sexual, and cyber forms of intimate partner violence and the extent of PTSD and depression symptoms (Wood et al., 2020). Meanwhile, a nationally representative cross-sectional study based on the 2007 Australian National Mental Health and Well-being Survey discovered that GBV was significantly associated with mental health disorder and psychosocial dysfunction and disability (Rees et al., 2011). Namely, for women who had experienced 3 or 4 forms of GBV in their lifetime, the rates for experiencing mental disorders were 77.3 per cent, for anxiety disorders 52.5 per cent, for PTSD 56.2 per cent, for substance use disorder 47.1 per cent, and for suicide attempts 34.7 per cent. Importantly, an anonymous survey designed to assess sexual health resources at 28 college campuses across the University of Minnesota (USA) discovered that students at colleges with more sexual violence resources experienced lower incidence of mental health conditions compared to students attending colleges with fewer resources (Eisenberg et al., 2016). This demonstrates that institutions can contribute to the wellbeing of victim-survivors of sexual assault by implementing and advertising post-assault resources to ensure the creation of a supportive environment for victim-survivors by connecting them with appropriate services.
Domestic violence is considered a key pathway to homelessness and is a growing issue within Australia. This encompasses both the typical definition of homelessness but also extends to inappropriate living conditions, such as living out of one’s car. The primary trigger leading to homelessness among domestic violence sufferers is concern regarding the safety of them (and/or their children) (Tually et al., 2008). Tually et al. (2008) highlight the potential for education as an empowerment strategy for domestic violence victim-survivors and consider it key to preventing such violence in the first place. This point connects to the key research question of our study – how experiences of GBV impact on women’s access and participation in higher education.
The impacts of GBV on accessing and participating in higher education
The literature illustrates the way in which experiences of GBV, especially those impacting adolescents and young women, can create life-long disadvantage. GBV is shown to be an obstacle to participation in higher education. Furthermore, GBV experiences among young women can reduce life-long earnings and increase the chance of long-term poverty. A retrospective, longitudinal survey study of single mothers receiving welfare in an urban county of Michigan (USA) who were transitioning to work, demonstrated that experiences of adolescent intimate partner violence shape women’s economic trajectories due to resultant educational deficits (Adams et al., 2013). Namely, victim-survivors of adolescent intimate partner violence “earned significantly less and experienced significantly less growth in earnings over time as a consequence of lower educational attainment when compared with demographically similar women who had not experienced intimate partner violence during adolescence” (Adams et al., 2013, p. 3295). These negative implications for women’s adulthood earnings were primarily due to educational harm caused by an abusive partner, including stifling of educational and career goals (Collin-Vézina et al., 2006); decreased school attachment, lower average grades and higher expectations of dropping out of secondary school (Banyard & Cross, 2008); physical and psychological impacts impeding academic outcomes (Glass et al., 2003); and potential for reproductive violence resulting in unwanted pregnancy damaging educational achievements (Miller et al., 2010). These findings illustrate that adolescent intimate partner violence can result in significant educational disadvantage and pursuant economic implications for victim-survivors, and highlights the need for intervention strategies that support their education and career development (Adams et al., 2013).
In a US study, focus groups involving women victim-survivors of domestic abuse demonstrated the potential of higher education to assist women to achieve self-sufficiency after suffering domestic violence (Brandwein & Filiano, 2000). Brandwein and Filiano (2000) found that without further education, women who had suffered abuse were limited to low paying work which left them living below the poverty level. Ultimately, without the benefit of education and formal qualifications, the effects of leaving a violent partnership can be devastating and leave women without the ability to survive economically (Brandwein & Filiano, 2000). Further emphasising the importance of higher education, analysis of the 1993 wave of an ongoing national survey following 5,000 American families examined the relationships between women’s education, marital status and economic wellbeing (Pandey & Zhan, 2007). Their findings suggest that women with children who have a four-year college degree experience substantially reduced economic vulnerability due to having significantly higher work income, property values, child support income and lower welfare income compared to women with or without a high school diploma (Pandey & Zhan, 2007). A small body of literature documents the experiences of women attending university after experiencing violence in their home lives. However, it is worth noting that this field of research is limited, both in Australia and internationally. What research exists looks at the experience of violence directed at women. While this focus rightly reflects the fact that most victims are women, it is important to also capture the experience of men and gender-diverse people as victims of intimate partner violence. For example, Hahn and Postmus (2014) point out that the emotional and socio-economic effects of family breakdown as a result of violence can make accessing education difficult. They argue that the obstacles that result from violence at home, as they relate specifically to higher education access and participation, could be further explored in academic literature (Hahn & Postmus, 2014).
Whilst violence is not the direct topic of focus in research by Norton et al. (1998), their study on how long-term relationships for mature-age students are impacted on when one partner begins participating in higher education suggests that a significant number of long-term relationships feel strain in this context. Women in particular experienced entering higher education as potentially threatening their personal relationships, whereas men did not (see also Pascall & Cox, 1993). This was primarily due to women’s studies leading to experiences of hostility from their male partners (Norton et al., 1998). These findings indicate that the impact of higher education on personal relationships are often shaped by gender injustices. Namely, the strain associated with the hostility that women are more likely to be subject to from male partners upon entering higher education could potentially make women vulnerable to experiencing violence after they enter higher education.
Beyond accessing higher education, victim-survivors’ experiences of GBV often continue to impact on and disrupt their participation in higher education. In research by Wagner and Manusson (2005) in a Canadian context, the journal entries of first-year social work students were examined. It was found that women who had previously experienced violence struggled to negotiate the demands of academic coursework whilst coping with memories of past abuse. Furthermore, research by Jordan et al. (2014) in a US context illustrated how experiences of violence that occur whilst a student is in college (university) severely impact on grades and academic performance. In this sense, GBV needs to be considered a barrier to higher education retention, and recognised as such in institutional policy (Jordan et al., 2014). Wagner and Manusson (2005) suggest university students’ dual status as ‘survivors’ needs substantial further investigation.
A study by Reilly and D’Amico (2011) in a US context recognises that women who have experienced trauma from either childhood abuse or intimate partner violence face unique challenges when studying in higher education contexts and often relate differently to university study. They describe how “abuse victims” can feel more isolated at university than those who have not experienced trauma. Indeed, when in a crisis situation, women often move away from their violent circumstances therefore leading to increased isolation and disruption to their participation in higher education. Reilly and D’Amico’s (2011) research explores how the use of mentoring programs at university for women who have experienced violence can offer a practical way to counter feelings of isolation, fears of failure, and a sense of disconnection to the higher education environment. Overall, the impact of violence on women in higher education settings needs to be recognised more widely, and taken into account in institutional contexts.
International students
Forbes-Mewett and Nyland (2008) examined differences in the notion of security among international students in a series of in-depth interviews. They found that being in an unfamiliar culture affects students’ sense and level of security, and that understanding the cultural particularities of these needs is necessary to meeting them. International students were more likely to experience discrimination and potentially harassment in the university setting, which has implications for increased risk of exposure to violence (Forbes-Mewett & Nyland, 2008). In contrast to these findings, Paltridge et al. (2010) discovered via interviews with international students living in different settings in Australia that those living in on-campus university accommodation felt physically secure and experienced a reduced threat level to their social security. The authors suggested improving access to secure university accommodation as a way to prevent violence against international students. More recently, in a study investigating the impacts of COVID-19 shutdowns on young hospitality workers in Australia, Coffey et al. (2020) found that the pandemic exacerbated existing vulnerabilities related to gender, migrant status and economic vulnerability for young women international students.
Student disclosures of violent experiences within higher education contexts

A significant body of research in relation to violence in higher education refers to students disclosing personal and traumatic experiences of violence in higher education contexts. Broadly, this research provides strategies for how to manage disclosures, and suggests that institutional support mechanisms need to be in place to support both staff and students who are affected by disclosures. This body of literature shows that disclosures of violent experiences are common, and occur across faculties (Richards, Branch & Hayes, 2013). These studies suggest that having appropriate strategies for mediating the possibility of violent disclosures in learning environments are imperative (Cares, Hirschel & Williams, 2014; Bertram & Crowley, 2012; Branch, Hayes & Richard, 2011). There is potential for victimsurvivors of violent experiences to be retraumatised through their coursework at university (Mummert, Policastro & Payne, 2014). Teaching domestic violence themes and topics demands particular sensitivity and the availability of support for students (Murphy-Geiss, 2008). The studies highlight the need for strategies and frameworks in universities at the institutional level to support students who have experienced gender-based violence. They state the need for strategies and procedures to be developed and made known for staff, students, and peers involved in disclosures.

The role that higher education plays in alleviating the impacts of GBV
Higher education has been shown to play a significant role in alleviating the impacts of experiences of GBV. Work by Hahn and Postmus (2014) explores how women who have experienced violence at home then approach and experience higher education. Their study of “impoverished intimate partner violence survivors” (p. 79) describes how, after previously experiencing intimate partner violence, women who go on to higher education report raised self-esteem, a feeling of empowerment and a better sense of wellbeing. Higher education participation was described by Hahn and Postmus’ participants as a way to change their “self-concept” by raising their self-esteem. Hahn and Postmus (2014) argue that women should be supported to attend higher education first when leaving circumstances of violence (rather than “work-first”), because women report developing greater self-esteem through engaging with education than they do with employment. This is a key point that will be discussed below in the findings from our own study.
In addition, research by Wetterson et al. (2004) with women who have experienced domestic violence currently living in a refuge, illustrates that women in these circumstances have a strong desire to pursue higher education because it is considered to be a way to “accomplish something”. These studies suggest that participation in higher education can actually result in a “reimagining” of identity for GBV victim/survivors. A PhD dissertation by Underwood (2019) explored the subjectivities that female victim-survivors of domestic violence construct whilst pursing higher education. Underwood (2019) found that higher education experience and participation is significant in reshaping identity construction, with women constructing themselves as “independent” and a “good student”.
In other research that relates to how GBV impacts on higher education access and participation, experiences of violence are often peripheral to the primary focus of the studies which instead, and importantly, explore the gendered inequality that women face in settings of higher education. For example, in a study of Queensland students, 20 per cent of the research sample (of 55 women) described an experience of domestic violence, and almost 11 per cent had experienced rape outside of a context of domestic violence (Baker, 2008). Finally, preliminary research suggests that higher education can provide a way for victim-survivors to move beyond the significant disadvantages that can stem from leaving a violent domestic circumstance. In a report examining issues of gender, family violence and homelessness in the context of Melbourne, Tually et al. (2008) position education as an “empowerment strategy” for women who have been affected by domestic and family violence. They suggest that accessing education should be considered part of the institutional response to women who experience violence because this boosts the self-esteem of women in the shorter term and provides avenues for economic independence in the longer term. Indeed, Brandwein and Filiano (2000) describe how access to further education is important if women are to overcome the disadvantages that can be a product of violence at home. The data from this US context described how the majority of women were limited to low-paying work following family breakdown as a result of domestic violence. In another US example, Chang et al. (2006) identify participation in higher education to be a significant step to “move toward safety” after being in a situation of violence at home.
In these examples, access and participation in higher education is positioned as a significant way through which women who have experienced violence at home can achieve individual self-sufficiency. However, the strongly neoliberal understanding of individual self-sufficiency present in some of the literature can be criticised for overlooking the structural and collective nature of GBV. One example of the neoliberal vision for higher education as a path to self-sufficiency is Tually et al. (2008), where little interest is taken to what the experience of higher education is actually like for women who have left a domestic violence circumstance. Further, in many of the existing studies education, as personal development, is positioned as neutral and inherently good. Overall, this linkage between higher education and perceived increase in opportunity and “self-sufficiency” for women who have experienced violence at home requires further exploration to bring to light the complex contexts that shape student victim-survivors’ experiences of and engagement with higher education. Indeed, as a powerful institution that profoundly shapes experience, identity and practice in complex ways, higher education is an important site of analysis, including to understand its role, responsibility and relationship to GBV. As we will suggest below, higher educational institutions are both sites which reproduce GBV, and which can be used to challenge it.
References

The list of references for the literature review can be found here.

Mapping the Service Sector

Researchers with the Gender Justice Hub have conducted interviews and surveys with staff working in the Domestic Family and Sexual Violence (DFSV) sector to map currently existing post-crisis and recovery services for victim-survivors of GBV in the Hunter, New England and Central Coast regions.

Initial themes coming out of the research highlight the extreme under-funding of DFSV services when compared to the growing extent of need in the community. Participants explained that the level of acute need for emergency accommodation and other supports makes extremely difficult for DFSV organisations to offer the long-term, possibly more transformational, programs and supports that some victim-survivors need to rebuild their lives and engage in full social participation. The data shows that funding in the DFSV sector is overwhelmingly geared towards short-term emergency support. This funding is life-saving, crucial, and still cannot meet the need. The Mapping shows that few services exist to support victim-survivors in rebuilding their lives and dealing with the ongoing impacts of trauma.

The next step for this project will be a forum in the second half of 2025 to discuss the preliminary results with Hub partner organisations and other DFSV staff. This workshop will facilitate a co-research process, where frontline DFSV staff work with Hub researchers to identify which elements of the data need development, and how the findings can assist the development of services that support victim-survivors to thrive.

Working together with specialist community services, we will facilitate a co-research process to understand how we can assist the development of services that support victim-survivors to thrive.

Understanding Gender-Based Violence Content in Curriculum

Through interviews across the University of Newcastle, we will develop a picture of how future graduates are taught about gender-based violence. We will learn about areas of best-practice and where there may be gaps.

Publications

View publications and resources from the Gender Justice Hub and across the sector.

Learn More

This project was prepared on Awabakal, Darkinjung, Gadigal, Wonnarua and Worimi lands. We acknowledge the unceded lands on which we work and we pay our respects to Elders past and present.

The Hub is a project of...

Partners

The cover artwork was produced by participants in the Claim Our Place program. Elements from participants’ artworks were collated by Anna Rolfe at the University Galleries.