08 Jul Leadership Forum | The Goals of a 21st Century Engaged University
The Goals of a 21st Century Engaged University
New challenges and opportunities for Australian Higher Education
Time: 9.30am – 12.30pm
Location: National Convention Centre, Canberra
Members: $95 (includes Light Breakfast)
Non-Members: $195 (includes Light Breakfast)
Register to Attend Here
Join sector leaders and practitioners for Engagement Australia’s signature UA Leadership Forum The Goals of a 21st Century Engaged University
Engagement has never been more important to Australian Universities. Universities engagement now extends far and wide and reaches into schools, colleges, industries, commerce, research and development and employment of almost every kind. Universities are ubiquitous throughout communities in every land. The challenges of reconstructing a university mission for the 21st century, the problematic nature of community engagement, developing local regional and metropolitan-wide provision simultaneously, achieving social justice through educational interventions and the role played by cultural knowledge for individuals are all issues currently under consideration, with no obvious consensus emerging.
In the developing 21st century we need universities which exist for a social purpose where learning can transform lives in a world of uncertainty and instability. Our current education system requires a university curriculum where programs of study, methods of learning and teaching, critical thinking and analysis, methods of assessment and frameworks of dialogue and critique are designed for specific sets of social purposes to meet the challenge of change which modernity inevitably brings. This challenge is ever more urgent and contested for civically engaged universities.
Engagement Australia’s Leadership Forum will explore how the cultural and social goals of a 21st century engaged university will need to change if the social determinants of university life are to be translated into the lived contingencies of people’s experience. Join us to hear from our national panel of experts about how engaged universities can provide a powerful voice to government(s), industry and the communities they serve through deep, collaborative and sustainable partnerships. Speakers will include:
Professor Jessica Vanderlelie Deputy Vice Chancellor, La Trobe University will represent Professor John Dewar AO Chair of Universities Australia and Vice-Chancellor La Trobe University. Professor Vanderlelie will make the case that Universities now more than ever need to address societal challenges in the post-pandemic University.
Professor Sharon Bell AM Emeritus Professor, School of Culture History and Language, Australian National University will remind us that the pandemic and post-pandemic evolution of our institutional values and scholarly and professional practices represent a pinnacle of civic achievement.
The Hon. Verity Firth Pro Vice-Chancellor (Social Justice and Inclusion), University of Technology Sydney will argue that community engagement assists higher education institutions in fulfilling their civic purpose through socially useful knowledge creation and dissemination, and through democratic practice.
Chair of the Session
Professor Jim Nyland, Chair of Engagement Australia and Associate Vice Chancellor, Australian Catholic University
The latest edition of Transform: the Journal of Engaged Scholarship will be launched at the Leadership Forum and the article below from this Issue provides a ‘think-piece’ designed to stimulate discussion and debate about the progress of our modern civic engaged universities:
Civic Washing? Really? By Professor Sharon Bell AM
The Leadership Forum will also launch this year’s Engagement Australia Awards and the new Australian Carnegie Community Engagement Classification system now in place under the auspices of Engagement Australia.