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VC ’ s corner broadly about leadership acumen outside of the universities and how we could transition that across . I ’ m thinking about opportunities for people from business or industry , even from government or NGOs .
Maybe we need three separate pathways to professorship . So , there ’ s the standard academic career pathway , but also maybe , we need a leadership pathway to recognise the leadership skills from outside the universities , and also an industry pathway where champions of industry or people with a depth of industry experience could transition across .
Another important factor if we went down that path , is that it could help shift the diversity of our academics altogether . I ’ m not sure the diversity in our academic ranks really represents or reflects the diversity of our student cohort , nor the communities that we serve .
We ’ re getting an increasing emphasis on partnering between universities and industry . We ’ re seeing a push for job ready graduates . What ’ s your view of the importance and the best approach to partnering between universities and business ? I had the opportunity to spend some time in the US a few years ago and I caught up with Mary Sue Coleman , who was the president of the University of Michigan at the time . She had a great phrase which was “ Partner or perish ”. And really , I believe that more now than ever before .
Universities are going to have to partner more than they ’ ve ever done before , because we have to stay relevant , and we have to understand how we can react to a changing world . Now , the vast majority of students coming into universities do so on the hope that they ’ re going to get a great job at the end of it .
So more than ever before , I think universities not only need to provide a great education , but I think we need to provide the skills , the attributes , also the mindset . And I think we ’ ve got to provide some resilience for them to be successful when they do go into that world of work .
One of my senior colleagues often says that we need to be educating not just the job takers of tomorrow , but actually the job makers of tomorrow . So , I think bringing in more of the entrepreneurial skills into the way in which we educate our students and train them is important . And what we ’ re seeing at AUT in terms of how our students are engaging is a bit of a return to the on campus career fairs , from the point of view of companies wishing to get their brand on campus .
We ’ ve recently gone through a very successful reverse mentoring program with some senior staff and some of New Zealand ’ s most iconic companies . They wanted to get that brand on campus for sure , but they also wanted to demonstrate the culture behind the organisation . And interestingly , the other thing they wanted to achieve was actually understand the world from the student ’ s perspective to help them shape their organisation going forward .
I believe that the intellectual property that ’ s inside universities has to be opened up more successfully for the benefit of our partners and research that ’ s undertaken . Particularly in large parts of universities of technology , it really should translate into industry for them to commercialise it and for them to take it forward .
Policy and strategy is one thing , but we ’ ve got to try and shift the culture . I think it ’ s difficult for universities to commercialise what ’ s already on their shelves . So , it ’ s really back to partnering with the outside world for clear , strong and mutually beneficial outcomes .
Tell us about the AUT story . It ’ s a great university . We ’ re young and we ’ re agile . Recently , we were ranked number 40 again in the THE rankings of young universities . But like all universities last year , we had to switch really rapidly to that online delivery and as a university of technology , there were some massive challenges there . However , we did it well . Student outcomes were good , and in actual fact , some of the very best student work that I ’ ve seen from my faculty was produced last year .
We ’ re changing over our learning management system . That ’ s a big exercise in any university , but there are so many things that we ’ ve learned from what happened in 2020 and moving online that we can bring into a new learning management system .
We ’ re most of the way through a once in a generation university-wide curriculum structural reform , which is going to lead to greater student choice , but also better alignment around the jobs of the future . But there are some challenges , it ’ s not all easy . As a university of technology , we are very applied and our students tend to learn
Society doesn ’ t really understand the benefits of having universities in our nation .
through doing , and going from practice to theory and how we achieve this through online learning is always going to be difficult . But I think where we ’ re heading is delivering a hybrid model and providing students with the very best of online and the best of the face-to-face .
Another challenging thing we all need to be mindful of is around digital equity . During the lockdown last year we worked really , really hard to make sure that our students who were locked up at home and didn ’ t have the digital capability to carry on with their studies were supported . We supplied laptops and modems to make sure that they didn ’ t drop out . Had they dropped out , I ’ m pretty sure many of them wouldn ’ t have come back into the university sector at all . And that would have been a real shame .
Another feature of AUT is what I refer to as inclusive excellence . It ’ s about no matter where students come from or where the student is , AUT will meet them there and support them on their journey with us . So , we really set out as a university to make sure that we don ’ t leave any students behind .
How might we all look to a greater commitment to industry partnerships as a way of changing higher education in a post-pandemic world , and how might those partnerships help lead to better economic recovery and regeneration ? I think often society doesn ’ t really understand the benefits of having universities in our nation , thinking that it ’ s around providing an education and some research output . I like the view of them being cornerstones of cities or elements in regional parts of our nation , where they can add so much to society and so much to the community .
In terms of recovery , well , let ’ s face it : we ’ ve got a lot of smarts locked up in universities . We ’ ve got smart academics , we ’ ve got smart students . And if we can figure out how better we can partner with industry , that surely has to be a good way forward when thinking about economic recovery . ■
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