Dr Ashman received a prestigious Australian Award for University Teaching following her creation of, and continued efforts with, the program which sees the bulk of her regional business and accounting students land jobs as a result.

Senior lecturer Dr Ashman is course co-ordinator of accounting, both undergraduate and postgraduate, for all of La Trobe's campuses, and she is also the regional academic co-ordinator for business in Bendigo.

But that busy schedule has not prevented her from establishing a life-changing mentorship and placement experience for her students.

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What began in Bendigo as a "really good opportunity to get students experience" expanded to Albury-Wodonga, Mildura and Shepparton campuses, and is now branching out to Bundoora campus students in Melbourne.

"I am proud to have been part of a program that has directly changed regional students' lives over the past 10 years," Dr Ashman said.

"I am very pleased to have won this award as it is recognition of what many regional students have achieved.

"What we found was over that 10 years, 94 per cent of Bendigo students and 90 per cent of all regional participants obtained ongoing employment as a direct result of their internship."

Since 2010, Dr Ashman, who has an industry background herself having finished her chartered accountancy with Deloitte and working in auditing, has established a regional network of industry mentors who could provide her students with an insight into business and accounting.

This is particularly important as the regional La Trobe campuses do have a higher portion of students who are the first in their family to pursue tertiary education or who come from lower socio-economic backgrounds.

While Dr Ashman said that wasn't noticeable in the classroom, the extra support and guidance the university could offer in applying for positions or preparing for interviews was certainly valuable - as was the boost to know they could belong in a professional workforce.

Post placement, most students are offered positions in the firms where they undertook the training.

"Otherwise [the placement] was the direct reason that they move straight into a position," Dr Ashman said.

"There's always a handful positions that were never going to lead directly to a job but those students still gained a lot from being in it.

"Some of those students who started [early on] are partners in the accounting firms now, and there's a number of students from five, six years ago who now come to us and say, 'Can we have a student?'"

"They like to give it back if you like - it becomes a really valuable way of keeping regional students regional, putting back into the community."

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Dr Ashman said her students could take their degrees as far as they wanted, staying regional or working overseas.

Giving those who stay local those opportunities to flourish is great job satisfaction for Dr Ashman.

She particularly praised the Bendigo business community for their generosity and continued support.

"We feed off each other, it's mutually beneficial," she said.

"But at the end of the day, it's the student who really wins out because ... they have opportunities at the end of it."

Dr Ashman's passion for accounting could make most people keen to study what she calls the "language of business" but she is also incredibly excited to be giving regional students more opportunities.

"Some students will quite happily want to go to Melbourne and that's fair enough," she said.

"But there's a large percentage who either don't want to or can't afford to and if we don't have a facility that allows them to study their interests - that's a great loss of of capital to our area.

"There's a lot of clever people out there.

"Sometimes it's having the ability to access education that can make that difference."

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