VC’s corner
campusreview.com.au
Burning issues
Will we choose transformation and
sustainability, or apocalypse?
By Jim Nyland
I
t is noteworthy how far we have come
in defining and shaping a concept of
engagement. Universities in Australia are
helping to build the future, in partnership
with others across the globe also, as part of
a new economic and social order.
The scope of issues and themes they are
dealing with is literally breathtaking. From
the intellectual issues of a post-truth world
to cities and communities of the future
Australia, and from action strategies for
economic development to the meaning
of civic life – there are insightful and
hopefully controversial and stimulating
debates and ideas put before those
involved in university engagement … and
the general public.
Ideas tested in healthy and open debate
and put into the public domain are the
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lifeblood of democratic engagement.
Engagement Australia (EA) has been
immersed in this culture of debate and
challenge.
So far so good. We have an array of
vital issues before us, each one of which
is significant in itself. The contributions
selected for discussion will help us to think
through difficult challenges and reach
decisions in our ‘heimat’ – our own place
and locality and culture where it will be
meaningful, or not!
This is exactly the point in having debates
and is why the Australian government’s
recent intervention to assure freedom of
speech in our universities is timely.
We should test the limits of
understanding and get new illuminations
from arguing the case, defending our
beliefs and meeting the strongest
arguments of our opponents. It is vital that
we do not all agree, while providing the
open platform for knowledge creation and
exchange that ‘engagement’ demands.
This is EA’s unique role – providing a
process for dialogue and discourse for
those whose concerns lie in the burgeoning
field of university engagement with
government(s), industry and community.
And it is pleasing to see that EA’s
membership is now the largest in its
18-year history, which speaks volumes
to the strategic priorities of our current
higher education leaders.
The process of dialogue and discourse
is clearly vital to advancing the university
engagement agenda. However, in looking
at the array of matters we are debating, it
is clear that we are immersed in processes
and experiences in the here and now which
we only partially understand and recognise.
Yet there is a transformation taking
place right now and we are part of it. Such
transformations can take place below the
horizon of awareness. It is possible to be
unaware of the meaning and significance of
what is right before our eyes.
Yet there is one theme which we surely
can no longer ignore. It is the one that
asserts that the planet itself is in dire
circumstances and its future existence as our
home and heimat is now threatened. If we
continue to destroy our natural environment
and to pollute our seas, rivers, landscapes
and forests, we shall destroy our very means
of existence. If we continue to lower our
horizon of knowledge and awareness, we
shall reap the harvest of self-destruction.
There is a great transformation to come,
and our journal discussions, research
and publications within the Engagement
Australia ‘family’ are an indicator of its
presence and of an emerging reality which is
now a pressing force that will not be denied.
This transformation is already underway
and it is evolving under the pressure of and
in response to perhaps six key themes dealt
with below, each of which is an aspect