Valerie Cleary has worked as literacy educator at CQUniversity for 20 years. Her focus has been developing strategies and resources to assist adult learners to improve writing skills in preparation for successful undergraduate study. In her work she considers the broad experiences, beliefs and values that the diverse learners at CQUniversity hold. She currently works with the School of Access Education, Academic Learning Centre (ALC) as Head of Services, leading a team of advisers who provide undergraduate students and international students enrolled in masters degrees with assistance to develop academic skills across academic writing, computing, science, mathematics and statistics disciplines.

Val co-champions the Retention Community of Practice (CoP) at CQUniversity which seeks to assist CoP participants to develop ways to improve and innovate in areas related to retention, including research, curriculum, and student support. This is done through inviting speakers to share the successes and strategies they have to assist retention.