Start of 2014

It’s now the start of the third month of 2014 and the start of a new academic year and here are some thoughts to kick it off.

Arizona

In January I visited Arizona State University (ASU) and the University of Arizona.  Both institutions are ‘Land Grant’ universities which means they were established primarily to benefit their communities.  ASU is widely recognised as a leader in strategy, information management and improving retention outcomes for its students.  ASU has a very similar student demographic to CSU and has a very sophisticated system for identifying students who may be at risk based on their academic performance.  It transpired that one of their key initiatives to improve retention has been to build residences and work on community formation – both themes which have been important to us at CSU.  ASU also has a commitment to achieve carbon neutrality and it was interesting to see solar panels everywhere – including covering the car parks and as shade structures around the campus in Tempe.

University of Arizona has a Native Nations Institute and, through its College of Law, an Indigenous Peoples Law and Policy Program (IPLP). Professor Miriam Jorgensen from the Native Nations Institute has been involved with CSU and other Australian universities on a collaborative research project to explore nation building for Indigenous Australian communities.  Several of our staff and members of the Wiradjuri nation had visited Arizona in 2013 to attend the IPLP.  The visit was a very interesting experience; there are significant differences between the context for American Indian communities in the US and Indigenous communities here but there are also strong parallels. In particular, they have focussed on establishing good governance structures and practices in communities to assist community and economic development.

What was really refreshing about both institutions was that they were genuine in thinking first about what their communities need and as a distant second about how this might play out in terms of esteem through global rankings.  As far as I could tell, this applied at all levels and was a significant change to the level of perpetual angst over rankings we seem to have in Australia.  I hope we will be able to continue the relationship with both universities.

Australian Federal Government Priorities

In the next few weeks we expect to get some information about the outcomes of the Federal Government’s Commission of Audit and Review of the Demand Driven System.  Needless to say, the whole sector is hanging on this because the impacts could be anything from negligible through to significant.  The Federal Minister for Education, Christopher Pyne, addressed Vice-Chancellors at a dinner last week but it has to be said we ended up much better informed about the Minister’s views on the values of higher education (and the contribution of Sir Robert Menzies to it) than on any future policy directions.  Sadly, the Minister did confirm the Government’s commitment to imposing the efficiency dividend on the sector which was announced by the previous Labor government.  When Labor announced it, the Coalition condemned it and bizarrely now that the Coalition is enforcing it in government, Labor is opposing it.  Go figure.

O Week and Start of Academic Year

Last week, we also held O Week events and commencement celebrations on our campuses.  I was able to take part in the ceremony in Bathurst and in a welcome to students living in Residences.  In addition to new and replacement capacity in Wagga Wagga and Orange, there has been very significant refurbishment of residences on the Bathurst campus.  A very strong theme for us has been the value of residences in helping students to grow socially and succeed at their studies (this is similar to the experience at Arizona State University).  We know that it is more difficult to create a good community in a poor environment and we are hoping that the investment in facilities is going to pay off in better outcomes for students.  However, there is also the need for strong support mechanisms and with Paul Dowler and Ken Dillon I took part in the training sessions for the Resident Assistants (RAs) in the second week of February.  I have done this each year since I took on the VC’s role and I have thoroughly enjoyed it on every occasion.  They are a great bunch of very motivated people and it is always great to get a student’s eye view of the organisation.

Universities Australia Conference and MOOCs

As mentioned earlier, last week we had the Universities Australia Conference – at which I once again tried my hand at live tweeting and also ran a panel session on MOOCs.  The MOOCs discussion was an interesting exercise; as participants I had Professor Jane den Hollander, Vice-Chancellor at Deakin University, Professor Gregor Kennedy from the Centre for the Study of Higher Education at Melbourne University, Sally-Ann Williams from Google and Professor George Siemens, now at University of Texas but who started the whole MOOC thing at Athabasca University along with Stephen Downes.  I was very pleased to meet George personally for the first time.  I encouraged pre-discussion via our new Blackboard Course Site and also via Twitter.

In the discussion at the conference itself, it was plain that much of the hype that has been attached to the ‘MOOC’ label was a symptom of the wider change that is happening in higher education.  In particular, the internet and broadband connectivity has made it easier to consume information for all learners and easier to deliver education for all providers – everyone is a publisher now.  It is not a new theme but this does challenge us to focus on what distinctive value we can offer as universities because no-one now needs us merely to access information.  It is also clear that universities have embraced technology and are making dramatic changes in the way they deliver courses.  However, for many they are not yet skillfully using technology to reduce workload for both students and staff and we will need to solve that if we are to thrive into the future.  One point that should not be overlooked is that MOOCs have attracted those who are learning purely for interest and the love of it.  It is pretty hard to be critical of something that attracted most of us to work in higher education in the first place. However, there was a consensus that perhaps it was time to ditch the term and get back to talking about education more generally.

Finally, it’s worth saying something about themes that emerged in the online pre-discussion but less so at the conference. Some of my twitter correspondents mused on the cultural imperialism aspects of MOOCs.  Is there the risk that our intellectual life will become homogenised – and Americanised – as much as our suburbs have?  In one of his movies, Wim Wenders said “the Yanks have colonised our subconscious”.  There is now a global interest in MOOCs from developing countries but we should also be interested in this in smaller countries in the developed world.  That is, we should if we value our cultural identity. Another very interesting point raised in the online conversation was the relationship between the use of technology to facilitate teaching and casualisation in higher education.  Casualisation was almost unmentioned at the conference and yet it is a topic of intense concern to staff, both for that section of the casual workforce looking for a permanent position and for existing staff who are managing the workload associated with managing teams of casuals.

Student Demand and Challenges for 2014

We are still counting the enrolments for the first session of 2014.  Indications at this stage are that we will meet our budget target for load, which is good.  However, it seems plain from State and National data that the demand driven system is topping out and student demand is plateauing.  It is also plain that all universities are getting very much more competitive for students and that students are recognising they have more power and more choice.  On top of this, the ease with which distance education can be delivered via the internet means that there are many more players entering the market.  So, a lot more choice for students but no university can afford to be complacent.  We need to ensure we have courses that are relevant, engaging, that teach students well and deliver graduates who are highly employable as well as being well-grounded, decent human beings.  We also need to provide a great student experience and ensure that all interactions with the university work smoothly.  So, not much to ask for but this is what our Strategy sets out for us to do over the next two years.  2014, then, is a year of delivering on our strategy.  Some of this is going to be exciting and innovative, but much of it will be unglamorous with a fair bit of graft.  To use the words from our Strategy though, we need to have the gumption and the soul to tackle the task.

9 thoughts

  1. Re creating community – I was thinking that we could create a USP by enhancing the internationals experience. Now I see them well supported academically but often alone socially and psychologically . If we could be know as a Uni that creates outstanding experiences for internationals and fosters relationships with local to build life long friendships and networks we may stand out from the rest. The opportunities to share multiculturally seem lost at CSu where the internationals tend to stay together and the locals don’t really get a chance to get to know them or understand their culture. I’m sure we all try to foster this in class but some formal approach might make a difference.
    Just some thoughts 🙂

  2. “On top of this, the ease with which distance education can be delivered via the internet means that there are many more players entering the market. So, a lot more choice for students but no university can afford to be complacent. We need to ensure we have courses that are relevant, engaging, that teach students well and deliver graduates who are highly employable as well as being well-grounded, decent human beings”

    This quote from your blog sums it all up in my opinion. However some points of thought and reflection.
    It is not that easy to deliver good education through the internet. We at CSU do it reasonably well, others in Australia are pretty poor (according to many comments from students i know) and my experience with MOOCs is very diverse, some are good (those i actually finish) and some are very bad (i give up in week 2). However this has probably all to do with an individual’s way of learning and our approach to offer many different learning resources which can be selected by students based on their own needs seems to work pretty good.
    It is so true we cannot be complacent, already students are complaining about sound quality in recorded lectures and messages, the internet at CSU is too slow, the whole Australian internet is too slow, there are no videos of the lectures and students cannot log on to live lectures due to microphone, video and internet problems (and that is just a snapshot of this weeks emails and messages). To disrespectfully butcher something Winston Churchill said (even Tories come up with good things sometimes!) “Give us the tools and we will continue with this great job”. And yes this means i really want a good microphone and a decent video camera so my lectures can go out live for our distance students so they can log on when available and interact, distance study just became internal so to speak. It is quite frustrating to give the lecture of a lifetime only to find out the quality of the recording reduced it to a mobile phone conversation from a car diving in between coverage areas in country Australia.

    I strongly believe in the community idea and the building of relationships with our students. We can debate whether this needs to be done face to face or using technology but i do think the building should be started from the schools, the staff at the schools interacts with the students on a daily basis (technological or face-to-face interaction) and should be able to build this up. If we get a community of students and scholars within the school we will probably reduce attrition, improve the well being of our students (and staff) and increase citizenship within the student body. But the focus should be on the school level not faculty or university in my opinion.

    After blabbing on for a page i can honestly say (with evidence) that I enjoyed the blog, lots of interesting ideas and food for thought. Thank you.

    Wouter

  3. Thanks Jen, this has definitely been a theme in thinking about growing international numbers. Students from all backgrounds need to feel socially supported – and I think Australian students can also benefit from getting to understand cultures from other nations – this has certainly been an important learning process for me.

  4. Thanks Wouter, good point re technology support. We certainly should have adequate bandwidth between campuses via AARNET, connection from the CSU network to domestic networks is more problematic. Is the access to decent quality video and audio something that has been discussed at the School level and/or with Division of Student Learning?

    Agreed that the Schools must be one of the foundations of building communities – in my experience students focus on the course primarily, the school less so and the faculty even less (I think they do know which university they are attending). Their interactions with the non-school aspects of the university are also important (Student Admin, Food outlets, Library…) and if they’re in Residences that is also an incredibly important set of relationships. So we do need to identify priorities across the university but they will have to be enacted at the School and unit level.

  5. Re creating a community and O week
    As a distance education student who happens to live and work in Bathurst I thought I would go along to O Week to engage in some of the “community” aspects of CSU. I was less than impressed by the reception I received. Faculty staff comments included: “you shouldn’t be here”, “O Week is not for postgraduate students”, “O Week is only for on campus students”, “the program on the website is all wrong – you should have been here at 9.00am”. I am a self-funded full fee paying postgraduate distance education student (a growth area for CSU) but feel no sense of membership of the CSU community as there seems to be no attempt made to invite distance education students into the CSU community. The few activities are on the assumption that distance students are (geographically) distant from the campus locations. I wonder if anyone has ever looked at where the DE students are and how many are actually in (or near to) campus towns and would benefit from on-campus DE-focused “community” activities.

  6. Thanks Lynne, disappointing to hear you had a bad experience – will make sure your comments get through to the Faculty. We do have postcode-based stats on where DE students are and of course many, but not all, of them are not within easy reach of a campus. We are working on providing physical support for DE students in various forms – the Rural and Remote team are working their way through NSW and it seems these are very well received but from the list of events it doesn’t appear that Bathurst was one of the spots so I think we have a hole here.

  7. Also did some digging with James Brann of the DE Outreach team. There were meet and greet sessions specifically for DE and Mature age students at the campuses but it struck me that they could be missed in the list of all the things happening and you might well be drawn to the School sessions instead. Might contact you via e-mail re this.

  8. Hi Andy,

    We’re perusing your blog as part of leadership/management assessments!

    I was interested in this entry and the commentary on the impact of MOOC open learning technology as leading to potential cultural imperialism and corollary risk of (Americanised) homogenisation of intellectual life. This juxtaposed with the outlook of the Native Nations Institute and its refreshing approach in ‘thinking first about what their community needs’ before ‘esteem through global rankings’ gave me pause for thought.

    Having had the opportunity to participate in the Wiradjuri Language Culture and Heritage Grad Cert at CSU, and finding it a strong contender as the most engaging and empowering study I’ve undertaken to date, I wonder about the current cultural imperialism in tertiary Australia and it’s homogenisation of intellectual life through a British/Anglicised lens.

    What rich complexity has been lost in these omissions and what strategic space for development of such could be possible?

    To me, a university ‘established primarily to be of benefit to its community’ seems like an ethos that would meet both pragmatic/demand driven outcomes and more philosophical, inclusion/empowerment objectives…certainly did feel that way studying Wiradjuri!

    Cheers,
    Ravnita

  9. Hi Ravnita,

    Thanks for this – I think your comment fell foul of the spam killers so I’ve only just seen it. Great to hear such positive feedback about the GC Wiradjuri. I think we need to be careful about the role of place and space in higher education – further comments on this in the post I just put up.

    Regards,

    Andy.

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