Federation U sells students a second-hand suit when they need biz-attire for a job interview. Not just its own, students in general. The clothes opp shops are next to the free-pantry on three of the university’s campuses.
It’s an example of a university with a community-focused service-strategy way different to the policy abstractions in last week’s arguments over the Australian Tertiary Education Commission.
Higher education lobbies have a strong case that ATEC needs to be independent of government. But they lost, because – Charles Sturt U’s Renée Leon aside – they did not explain why this is important to their students and communities. It does not appear to have occurred to many lobby leaders that they should try to translate the policy-speak into an explanation of how the new regulator could help communities.
It was an opportunity missed for universities to invest in their social licenses, statements of service that Deakin U VC Iain Martin warns are close to being cancelled, as communities wonder what is it that universities do that helps them. Martin argues universities must pitch their teaching and research as service. But grass roots connections, like helping students out when they need flash-ish clobber to get a job would be a great plus for any pitch.
Federation U is presenting itself as a resource for its regions with traditional university degrees combined with course-long work placements. It is a way for it to maintain sufficient enrolments so it survives but is also intended to keep the four communities it serves prosperous by staunching the flow of young people to Melbourne.
“Without clear investment in education-to-jobs pathways; economic stagnation and population decline puts local services and businesses under more pressure, communities face job-market misalignment, with local employment growth not keeping pace with workforce needs, increasing commuting costs and infrastructure strain growing place-based inequalities contribute to poorer health, mental health, wellbeing outcomes and fraying social cohesion,” is the sell.
1200kms north, the University of New England also gets it needs to renew its social licence, with a new ten-year plan that include things vice chancellors do not like committing to – hard numbers. Newish VC Chris Moran sets specific goals for academic achievement but also on community service – including custom-created work-study partnerships across the region, in aged, child and health care and in sport and backing new local AI-based businesses.
“Traditional assumptions about universities and their role in society are being challenged by the evolution of technology, changes to university funding, and a general decline in trust in the value of a university education,” is the announced reason for Moran’s plan.
These are naturals for regional universities that need to extend and expand community support but social licences can be cancelled in cities.
Which is where ATEC can come in. Part of its brief is to invigorate the long moribund “compacts,” process – specifying what universities agree to do for all that public money. Stating thE social licence they want to keep and reporting how they are going, preferably to a review panel with more than staffers from the Commission, would be a way for them to account for themselves.