Australian Universities: A conversation about public good highlights contemporary challenges facing Australian universities and offers new ideas for expanding public good. More than 20 experts take up the debate about our public universities: who they are for; what their mission is (or should be); what strong higher education policy entails; and how to cultivate a robust and constructive relationship between government and Australian universities. Issues covered include: – How to change a culture of exclusion to ensure all are welcome in universities, especially Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students as well as those from low socio-economic backgrounds. – How "educational disadvantage" in Australia often begins in school and is still the major barrier to full university participation. – The reality that funding for research and major infrastructure requires significant additional funds from non-government sources (e.g. international student fees). – A lack of policy recognition that international university students increase Australia’s social, cultural and economic capital. – Pathways to making policy decisions wide-ranging, consultative, inclusive and inspired rather than politically partisan and ideologically driven. – The impact of COVID-19 on universities, and particularly how the pandemic and governmental responses exacerbated extant and emerging issues. Australian Universities rekindles a much-needed conversation about the vital role of public universities in our society, arguing for initiatives informed by the realities of university life and offering a way forward for government, communities, students and public universities – together – to advance public good.

In a context in which explicit attention to the curriculum has been sidelined in universities’ strategy, this book makes an argument for why curriculum matters, both in understanding the effects of unbundled online learning and more broadly. It takes up two particular curriculum issues which are amplified in an unbundled context: differences in the formulation of curriculum between disciplines and professional fields, and the extent these are recognised in university strategy; and the push for constructivist pedagogies, and its effects on curriculum construction. Since the onslaught of MOOCs in 2012, unbundled forms of online learning offered via partnerships with external online program management and MOOC providers have grown significantly across the university sector. There has been much debate about the implications of these partnerships but the focus has predominantly been on the engagement of students and their learning. This book takes a different and novel approach, looking instead at the effects on curriculum and knowledge. Drawing on selected case studies, the book reflects on how university leaders and academics engaged with MOOCs and other forms of unbundled online learning in the early 2010s, and the effects of these reforms on curriculum practice. It captures in detail the complex and difficult work involved in university curriculum making in a way rarely seen in discussions of higher education. And it generates new in-sights about some of the critical problems manifest in the ongoing moves to embrace unbundled online learning today.

Many universities around the world are finding that the structures and processes they have put in place to further their educational missions are being tested by rapidly changing circumstances. These changes involve new pedagogies, new course designs, new technologies and updating of the physical campus; reflecting diversifying student needs, growing student numbers, increasing competition and more demanding stakeholder expectations. The Education Ecology of Universities examines these issues, starting with the challenges identified by university leaders who have responsibility for education, digital and campus planning. Sharing an analysis of in-depth interviews with more than 50 leaders, it identifies a range of conceptual and procedural gaps that undermine the full development and alignment of education, digital and campus strategies. The second half of the book provides practical ideas for taking a more holistic – indeed ecological – approach to understanding and improving university learning environments. Setting out a case for a new applied science of educational ecology, this book offers foundational concepts and theoretical perspectives, introducing methods for analysing and evaluating teaching and learning ecosystems. It will be of interest to anyone who wants better ways of understanding how local systems function and can be improved. It is a must-read text for all leaders and researchers in education, and indeed for anyone concerned with the future of higher education.

This book examines the governance of Asian student and academic mobility, which has transformed the higher education landscape. While campuses are experiencing an unprecedented level of diversity, knowledge creation remains explicitly Eurocentric and dominated by the Global North. The authors advocate for a new educational paradigm that takes into account the transcultural flow of knowledge on campus as a public good, capitalises on Asian students and academics’ multilingual competencies, and offers them equal access to creating quality-orientated education. The book argues that international higher education must be grounded in both a plurality of knowledges and the ethics of cognitive justice, and that the governing policies should facilitate the higher education sector to build a platform of internationalising affect and effect on campus.

Social Theory and the Politics of Higher Education brings together an international group of scholars who shine a theoretical light on the politics of academic life and higher education. The book covers three key areas: 1) Institutional governance, with a specific focus on issues such as measurement, surveillance, accountability, regulation, performance and institutional reputation. 2) Academic work, covering areas such as the changing nature of academic labour, neoliberalism and academic identity, and the role of gender and gender studies in university life. 3) Student experience, which includes case studies of student politics and protest, the impact of graduate debt and changing student identities. The editors and chapter authors explore these topics through a theoretical lens, using the ideas of Michel Foucault, Niklas Luhmann, Barbara Adams, Donna Massey, Margaret Archer, Jürgen Habermas, Pierre Bourdieu, Hartmut Rosa, Norbert Elias and Donna Haraway, among others. The case studies, from Africa, Europe, Australia and South America, draw on a wide range of research approaches, and each chapter includes a set of critical reflections on how social theory and research methodology can work in tandem.

Over the last few decades universities in Australia and overseas have been criticized for not meeting the needs and expectations of the societies in which they operate. At the heart of this problem is their strategy. This book reviews the organizational-level strategies of some of Australia’s prominent universities. It is based on their public documents that boldly report how they see their role in society and how they intend to navigate the future. These strategic statements are written to proclaim relevance, showcase achievements, attract students, and help to gain the support of the communities in which they operate. Using a strategy framework taught in their business schools, this book suggests that most such statements are deficient. Grand aspirations substitute for realistic operations and outcomes. The analysis also suggests that many of Australia’s universities are poorly governed and have become too complex and bureaucratic. A greater focus on their core responsibilities would help alleviate their current funding predicament.

Higher education is seen to be a means to “the” good life and is a dominant way societies distribute hope for social mobility. But does higher education deliver on its promise? This book attends to the hopes, experiences, and trajectories of working-class students and graduates from Western Sydney – an area that is imagined, from the outside, to be a place of lack and stagnation, the “other” Sydney. This book challenges the myth that participation in higher education necessarily leads to upward social mobility and traces how the rewards of higher education are unevenly distributed. It considers how visions of a good life are class differentiated and makes an argument for the significance of place when examining experiences of higher education. Rather than focus on university as a means to becoming middle class, Class, Place, and Higher Education examines how university becomes a means to “a” good life, not “the” good life, a good life that is embedded in place, in working-class places like Western Sydney, and one that becomes more complex and ambivalent through the process of going to university. Through an attention to the existential and social dimensions of mobility, Alexandra Coleman develops the term “homely mobility” to describe the pull of people and place, and small-scale degrees of mobility in place – to a better street, the suburb next door, the university down the road. Structural inequalities are an embodied dimension of social being and action, and through the lens of homely mobility, this book affords insights into broader processes of social reproduction and transformation.

This book collates and analyses the current research, debates, opportunities and practices in social work field education into one volume and contextualises this material within the broader context of social work. Current concerns about risk and uncertainty in field education are explored from multiple stakeholder perspectives. Social work field education is an integral component of social work education, yet its sustainability is increasingly challenged. Issue such as finding enough quality placements with accredited social workers, curriculum development, student diversity, and placement assessment of learning are being examined by researchers and practitioners alike. This represents a challenge for the social work profession generally. By drawing on traditional and alternative pedagogical perspectives on field education and constructions of risk and uncertainty evident in current discourse, the book presents innovative responses to existing challenges. Providing a reference point for future knowledge building in sustainable field education pedagogy and practice, this book will interest university field education programs and industry field educators internationally.

This book explores tried and tested strategies that support student and faculty engagement and inclusion in the academy. These strategies are anchored by a brief exploration of the history and effect/s of exclusion and deprivilege in higher education. However, while many publications exploring academic inequality focus on the causes and impacts of structural, psychological and cultural exclusion based on racism, sexism, classism and ableism, they rarely engage in interventions to expose and combat such de/privilege. Capturing examples of inclusive practices that are as diverse as student and faculty populations, these strategies can be easily translated and employed by organisations, collectives and individuals to recognise and combat social and academic exclusion within higher education environments.