VC ’ S CORNER
campusreview . com . au
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Learning from leaders
A new book gains insight from higher education ’ s top figures .
By Emilie Lauer
Australia ’ s universities have faced insurmountable challenges over the past two years . A new book , The New Leadership Agenda : Pandemic Perspectives from Global Universities , interviewed more than 50 global university leaders about the obstacles they faced during the pandemic .
Book author , HEDx co-founder Emeritus Professor Martin Betts , said some universities “ thrived and flourished “ during the move to online learning , while others struggled under pressure .
“ The priority for next year is to change our collective attitude and finding how we can work together to demonstrate the benefit of the sector rather than promoting its own individual institution ,” he said .
Professor Betts joined Campus Review to discuss his book and the highlights of two years learning from sector leaders .
CR : The New Leadership Agenda at dwells into issues faced by university leaders , especially during the pandemic . How do you think they managed ? MB : It ’ s been tough times for everybody in the sector and it ’ s been very hard for everyone in all our university communities . That includes our leaders , all our staff , students , and the institutions as a whole . If I think about the impact on those different groups , just briefly , leaders have found it very hard - I mean those sorts of jobs are lonely at the best of times . In the book , one of my interviews was with Lynn Bosetti , who ’ s a former dean of education at La Trobe and now a professor of higher education at British Columbia in Canada . She describes the challenge of the emotional labour having been heightened during these times . Jane den Hollander , a former vice chancellor of three different Australian universities , used a beautiful phrase in the book of staff having been the heroes of the hour and the goal at the base of the pyramid , I mean the extra workload that people were facing , the new skills they had to learn , the uncertainty that they were experiencing , the grieving over lost colleagues that happened through organizational change .
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