What I really think universities should look like in 20 years

I had the honour of presenting my initial remarks at the Innovative Research Universities conference. I could say a lot about universities but I had 4minutes, so I wrote stuff down. Then, I had this idea to make public those remarks on the blahg. So, Ta Da!

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Hi everyone! My name is Shivani, and I am currently a Master of Public Health student from Western. I’ve been a student for 6 years now. Three of which I have also been a student partner. I am a WSU Student Partners coordinating lead and I also sit on the strategic initiatives board looking at postgrad microcreds. That’s a quick wiki on me. 

Now, to my three points…

When you do student-staff partnership every day and long enough, you come to realise that shaping the university is not just the responsibility of staff. It’s ours too. We are the university too. You also realise that partnership can be transformative (and exhausting) and it is a curiosity tool that reveals the university in different ways.

So, what has my student experience and student-staff partnership work revealed to me?

Firstly, let’s start big and basic.  With the thing that students come to uni for— Degrees.   
We live in a time where the problems that surround us are complex and wicked. “Transdisciplinary problems”, they call it.  So, Higher Education is more important than ever!
We could make more transdisciplinary add-on degrees –we absolutely do need that.
You could unbundle or stack degrees— sure that too.   

The truth is, without students understanding their degree, and knowing that they can shape it, the work that we do in the “new and better degree space” is pointless.
Like rolling a boulder up a hill with a feather.  
You won’t get the enrolments that you are looking for. Or completion rates.

So, let’s start here- Focusing on helping university students and the Australian public understand what you could do in your degree.

Because, it would be a tragedy if we still heard students say-“my degree is a piece of paper; a recognition; accreditation.  It should be more than that. It needs to be.

So, what’s a first step? And this is my second point..

Start at the classroom level.  Student-staff partnership is a shift from seeing students as data points; from extracting from students, to seeing students as co-inquirers. As a low bar example, a student knowing or being invited to co-design their assessment topic with their teacher, is a small way to shape a good classroom and in turn a good degree.
20 years from now, I hope Student-staff Partnership is an obvious way of doing teaching and learning in classrooms.

Third and my last point, is a slight deviation but nevertheless, I have to say it.

Remember the point about helping students understand their university degrees and what they can do with them. While we do that, let’s also find more opportunities for gainful employment for students on our university campuses first and outside so we support them to get through. Student poverty and unemployment exists. Especially amongst my international student friends.

I am aware we ask a lot of universities. But I’ll leave you with this quote by Peseta and Salibury-
“Universities are these (magical) possibility spaces.”  They always have been.
I think my time’s up. Thank you.