By: Jennelle Kyd

Jennelle Kyd — Wed, 04 Nov 2015 02:44:37 +0000

To contribute to the development of cultural competencies that enable the future professional and societal leaders to behave in a manner that positively advances a more inclusive and tolerant world is something all education institutions should be doing. One can select a number of cultural issues that universities have taken on ahead of general societal advancements, challenging behaviours that affect culturally diverse matters. Universities can and should do a lot more. Whther this an ‘add on’ or ‘measurable’ competency is a difficult question and a challenge. When it comes to cultural behaviours as a graduate attribute, a big challenge is what do you measure, how do you assess and do you risk such an important attribute becoming tokenistic when not done well? Over many years I have found myself involved in and giving a lot of thought to cultural matters in all its forms from micro to macro behaviours as well as the internal and external faces/responsibilities of the organisation and its members. Some simple elements have emerged: the leadership of the organisation is very important for setting the tone and agenda; that it is everyone’s responsibility to contribute in some form; that universities through what they do and support have enormous capacity to make a difference; and that the impacts can be quite remarkable and enduring. At Swinburne we introduced in 2014 a series of student emerging leadership awards to recognise the diversity of contributions that students make that have real benefit and attainment of these awards is recognised on their transcipts. It has been extremely popular with the students, is self nominating across seven categories that include graduate attribute competencies and is supported by a process that involves assessment. We are monitoring closely to determine a range of impacts, but essentially we see this as a way of providing positive reinforcement and recognition of the variety of ways students get involved in and contribute to sustainabilty issues, global citizenship, community services etc. As well, it has provided us with information on the breadth of contributions our students make within and external to the university and is enabling us to help more students find ways to become involved.

Comments on: Acting VC preaches cultural competence

By: Jennelle Kyd